Popularity
by The-100th-Llama
Summary: "No one knows what it's like to be truly lonely until all they have are themselves." Sakaki is seen as the popular, athletic, usually silent, and often intimidating delinquent who regularly gets into fistfights, when those are the last qualities she wants to be known for. But she won't be held back by her shyness forever-she just knows it.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi there!**

 **While this isn't exactly a rewrite of the series, since I am going to try and incorporate original scenes, there also will be mentions of canon events (memorable antics of the characters, beach trips/sports festivals). I'm also going to incorporate some events that were mentioned in the magna or anime, but not actually seen.**

 **I've noticed that most, if not all, Azumanga Daioh fics I've read are set in third person POV. However, I thought first person might be better suited here, as the fic will generally follow Sakaki's thoughts, reactions, and so on, but in a way that hopefully adds to her character and doesn't make her out to be a Mary Sue.**

 **This is also on AO3's Azumanga Daioh archive, if you'd like to check that out.**

 **I'll be updating regularly, but I'll let you know if I think that might change.**

* * *

"…no one knew me, although they thought they did.  
And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was love?"  
—from "Magdelene—The Seven Devils" by Marie Howe

* * *

Chapter One

I was the tallest girl in the class.

I had expected that.

I was also the girl, it seemed to be, with the most filled-out figure.

I had expected that too, in the back of my head, the place where I shuffled away thoughts that I didn't really want to think about.

I recognized some of the girls, and a couple of the boys, as I swept past groups of my fellow students. They were leaning against desks, or sitting in chairs, all chatting away about how their summers had been. Of course, I only knew them by name.

I did not stop to chat.

I had nothing to chat about, and even if I had, I couldn't have made myself jump into a conversation like that — feet first.

The high school — my high school, the high school I was walking across the first floor of, surrounded by four walls of stone but also by dozens, hundreds of walls I could not penetrate, not the strong, silent, girl, oh no, not her — was fine. It was better then fine, actually. I hadn't expected to come here; I thought I would end up at a lesser place, a school where Tokyo University accepted no graduates.

I had thought wrong.

I found a seat by the window, towards the back of the room, still empty, still unclaimed. You would think window seats would get taken the quickest — they were the best for daydreaming, all those clouds shifting and tumbling, I knew that so well — but apparently there were no daydreamers in Class 1-3.

Or perhaps there were, and they had overslept.

I always had trouble sleeping, when I was younger. I had hated to get out of bed, hated the sound the clock made when the time came for me to get up. Now I got out of bed the moment the sound of the alarm entered my ears; there were cats out there, in my neighborhood, and all I had to do was reach out a hand to them.

I sat down in my seat.

I kept an eye on my bag. (Maybe there would be some hyper person who unapologetically chucked stuff out of your bag, and then laughed hysterically as you tried to pick your things up).

I thought about the glimpses of tails and whiskers I had seen last year, when I was still in ninth grade, when I still wished every night that I would somehow slow down. Just pause life for a minute or two, so everyone could catch up with me, and so I wouldn't feel so alone. So huge, so large and out of place, like a statue everyone admires but no one bothers to take a closer glance at. And the statue — well, it crumbles away from a lack of cleaning. It grows mold. It turns to dust.

I would not crumble. I would not grow mold. I would not turn to dust.

I would find someone here, here in this new school where there were some old faces and some brand-new and some only partly known. I had to find someone.

Or maybe I would just sit here in my seat, stare out the window, and hope the admiring whispers — or even nervous murmurs — would evaporate. I had done that for three years. I could do it for more, all the way through high school and all the way until after college.

But the universe didn't want that to happen, because the universe brought a late teacher, a small genius, an almost constantly blushing girl, an airhead, a self-described "full of spunk" teen, a weightwatcher, and a rival all to me.

I still don't know how it happened.

One minute I was sitting at my desk, attempting to replace thoughts of silently sitting with happier ideas. There would be a discovery for a cure for cat allergies. I would find friends would wouldn't have to look very high up to me, who would understand that I was more than "cool". Artistic abilities would make my fingers twitch to sketch a perfect drawing.

The next minute, shouts filled the room.

" _I'm Tomo Takino!_ "

"Tomo, shut up!"

I turned my head to see what was happening; I had been studying some early-morning clouds bumbling their way across the April sky.

A short girl — well, everyone looked short to me — was in a constant whirl of movement and energy as she came into the room. I assumed this was Tomo. (She would probably be the hyper person of the class—hopefully she wouldn't pull all my books out of my bag and I wouldn't have to stammer my way through an awkward conversation).

Another girl — taller, brown-haired, bespectacled, annoyed glare looking like it had been there since the start of time — followed Tomo into the classroom. She shut the door behind her.

I watched from my desk as conversations dropped to a whisper.

Huh.

I had gotten that treatment too. Everyone hadn't exactly stopped talking, but there had been a momentary pause as all the students had taken in the sight of a tall, pretty, quiet, cool, girl—

I bit my lip. _That's not going to happen here. That's not going to happen here,_ I thought. _It just won't._

"Ignore her," the brunette said to the suddenly silent students. "She's a little—"

"Awesome," Tomo interrupted. "Actually, it's more then just a little."

"Annoying, is what I was going to say."

"You're the annoying one, Yomi."

Yomi — for the brunette must be Yomi — looked even more annoyed. How was that possible? "I can't believe the first day of high school _hasn't even started_ , and yet you already manage to piss me off."

Students, getting bored with this conversation, began to talk once more.

"You better get used to it," I heard Tomo say, as she plunked her bag down on a desk, situated on the other side of the room from me. "I got into this school, and there's no way I'm going to get out of it, and leave you here _all alone_. You would hate that, wouldn't you?"

Yomi rolled her eyes as she sat down — wait, was she sitting down next —

She was.

Someone was sitting in the desk next to me, and she hadn't even double-checked to make sure what she had seen was right; she was too focused on her friend.

"I wish you _would_ leave," Yomi snapped at Tomo from across the room. "I'm never going to understand how you got in here."

Or maybe they weren't friends, after all; I couldn't tell.

"I'm a genius," Tomo gloated, as she sat down in her chair. "You don't understand my genius-isty, that's why you'll never understand."

"Genius-isty isn't even a word—"

BAM.

We all jumped.

Everyone fell silent again.

 _Those conversations must be so hard to follow_.

It was the door opening that had scared us — the door opening, and then smacking into its slot in the wall, it moved with such force.

In the doorway stood…

 _That's going to be the homeroom sensei?_

She didn't look like a teacher at all. Maybe it was her downcast expression. Maybe it was her long, wavy, tousled hair. Maybe it was the look in her eyes that signaled she was about to fall asleep at any moment.

"This is Class Three, yeah?" she asked as she walked over to her desk, eyes following her every movement.

Mute nods.

"Cool."

She sat down at her desk, glanced around, and didn't immediately fall asleep.

I felt myself relax a little. I hadn't expected a teacher like this, but the fact that she wasn't collapsing the minute she got a chance to made me forgive her for scaring me.

Somewhat, anyway.

"I'm Tanizaki-sensei, and I'm going to be your homeroom teacher. If you hear anything from Class Four about how I was in there for a second this morning, it didn't happen, you got that?"

Nods once more, faces looking like they would much rather go back to talking.

I lifted my left forearm from the desk, and rested my chin on my fist. I was near the back of the classroom. It's not like Tanizaki-sensei would take much notice of my boredom, anyway; teachers don't tend to.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Tanizaki-sensei scratch out her name on the board, the chalk making harsh complaints as it woke up for the first time.

 _Tanizaki Yukari,_ she wrote.

She sat back down with a satisfied smile directed toward us, and uncrumpled a piece of paper. It was the attendance sheet, I guessed. There would probably be a mad scramble to see who were the students that no one had spoken to yet.

Like me.

My fist tightened as I wondered how people would react to knowing my name, and knowing what I looked like, all in the same moment. Perhaps they would be so overwhelmed by how cool I was that they would forget my name in an instant.

"Wada Misaki." And so the roll call began.

"Here."

Students shifted in their chairs to see Wada Misaki. _I knew it._

"Matsuda Noa."

"Here." Another wave of chairs creaking in a chorus as students turned to look at the girl.

"Mizuhara Koyomi."

"Here," the brunette from before said. Yomi, or Koyomi, as it seemed to be.

I began to stop listening to the list of names. There were more important things to think of, anyway, like how a certain cloud almost had the shape of a small Neko Koneko...

I squinted. If the wind would just blow a bit more cloud away, then it would look better…

And then, as if from far away, I thought I heard my name called; I could only make out part of it.

"…Sakaki…"

"Here," I said quietly.

Heads glanced over to see who I was, as I had known they would have. I tensed up, wanting to hide, wanting to turn away and squeeze myself into a tight ball as a cat might.

 _Stop staring at me stop staring at me stop staring at me—_

"She looks so cool!" someone whispered to their neighbor; the majority of my classmates agreed as the idea jumped from desk to desk.

Oh, _no_.

I had thought that people would stop admiring me in ninth grade, and now they were taking my panic and discomfort and turning it into…coolness. Toughness. Whatever they wanted to call it.

"Mihama Chiyo," Tanizaki-sensei continued, and I felt myself relax as intent gazes dropped away from me.

Utter silence followed her words.

Tanizaki-sensei sighed deeply.

"I should let you children know that while I am usually — usually — a nice person…"

I didn't pay much attention as she continued speaking; the possible cloud-Koneko was close to gaining a larger cloud-Neko underneath, and I couldn't take my eyes away from the increasing cuteness. At least there might be something that made me happy today.

"…been a tough morning for me…"

The cloud-Neko was almost underneath the cloud-Koneko; I could just see the tips of its ears.

"…I have suffered things you cannot imagine…that _piece of crap_ , passing itself off as a bike…the _nerve_ of it…"

When the door slid open and footsteps tapped across the floor, everyone seemed to feel relieved that they had an excuse to stop listening. At least, I thought they were. The cloud-Neko was finally resting underneath the cloud-Koneko, and I wanted to paint a picture of it, it was so beautiful.

No…beautiful wasn't the right word for it.

Adorable.

That was it.

"Uwah, she's so adorable!"

For a moment, I thought the girl in the desk behind mine was referring to me.

 _Have I suddenly grown shorter? Do I not seem nervous? Did I forget to take out that ribbon from my hair this morning?_

But no, such a thing could not happen to me, for as I glanced away from the window and over the heads of my classmates — remarkably easy, I had to admit — I realized that there was a kid, a young girl, standing at the front of the class, beside Tanizaki-sensei's desk.

The girl dressed like all the girls — the dark red skirt, the lighter red blouse — in the spring uniform. Yet she was amazingly short, even to me, and her ginger hair was in pigtails.

In short, she was quite adorable.

"Ah." Tanizaki-sensei seemed to be at a loss for words for a moment, but she managed to get to her feet and come around her desk to stand besides the girl. "Yes."

The girl glanced up at Tanizaki-sensei, and smiled. If possible, she looked even cuter.

 _Aww…_ I thought, forgetting everything for a moment, except the cuteness radiating from the front of the classroom. _She's so cute! She's even cuter then the cloud-Neko Koneko._

Tanizaki-sensei was smiling — _Smiling? I guess the cuteness makes her forget to act pissed_ — as she said, "I'd like to introduce you to Mihama Chiyo. She's our new transfer student, from…from…some elementary school. Don't bother asking me the name."

"M-my name is Mihama Chiyo," Chiyo said, giving us the gift of a nervous smile. "I—it's very nice to meet you all."

I'd forgotten what kids sounded like at that age; Otouto was only four, and he sounded nowhere near as cute as Chyio. Maybe I was so used to my little brother that I failed to see all his cuteness.

"Even though Chiyo-chan is only ten years old, she's so smart it was decided that she should come to high school," Tanizaki-sensei said, smiling broadly while Chiyo blushed. It made her look even more endearing.

Gasps of awe from the class; we had a genius _and_ an adorable kid on our hands.

 _I wonder if she's smart enough to realize how I only seem to be cool…_

"Don't go picking on her because the little brat just happens to be smart," Tanizaki-sensei said, still smiling. "I expect better then that from you all."

 _Little brat…? It that an American term of affection, or something?_

Around me, my classmates began to call out encouragement to Chiyo-chan.

"Good luck, Chiyo-chan!"

"We're all supporting you!"

"You'll do great here!"

I wanted to add something too — something like _Would you be friends with me?_ — but my thoughts refused to let me get a firm grip on them, and I ended up with nothing but silence.

* * *

It was my first lunchtime on my first day in a new school, and I was going to eat it alone, as I sat at one end of a crowded cafeteria table. This high school had a cafeteria, where everyone gathered to eat lunch together…strange.

I could have gone to sit at the other end of the table, where other girls from my homeroom were sitting (and smiling in my direction, as though I were a cute cat that might simply walk away, aloof, if they came closer).

Yet I couldn't make myself sit near them. They weren't talking loudly — in fact, everyone in sight was talking in a courteous, even-toned manner to one another, save a certain Tomo Takino — but I knew if I sat with those girls, I would barely talk at all. I would blush, I would stammer out one word answers, I would end up feeling lonely and sad.

It was either that or enjoy a quiet lunch with myself.

At least it was pleasing to see that the contents of my bento box looked good.

Rice.

A hardboiled egg, the shell still intact.

Pieces of lightly grilled chicken.

Carrots and corn and pickles and cucumber.

There was nothing to do except bring bits of food to my mouth with my chopsticks.

 _It's only the first day,_ I told myself as I ate. _Everyone is still getting used to one another. I'll find some friends; I know I will. And the other students'll get used to me soon…they'll stop staring at me like…like how I probably stare at cute things._

 _They have to._

 _This isn't ninth grade anymore; these are high schoolers. They have more maturity. They'll give me a day before they start to…_

 _Start to…_

 _Whatever it is they do. Say I'm trouble, but in a good way. Admire me._

 _They could at least give me_ that _._

 _They'll probably think I'm good at sports…I guess I am, but I'd much rather pet a cat then do…sports-related activities._

 _I wonder if I'll see any cats on my way home. It's spring, after all…they should be nosing around, sniffing the air, sneezing at the scent of pollen, purring as I scratch between their ears…_

I let out a sigh at the thought of a cat purring as I petted it. Such a thing had never actually happened — the closest I had ever gotten to a real cat was last year, when I had seen neighborhood cats on my way to school. Scruffy in places and touting tangled whiskers, they were incredibly, unbearably, cute.

Yet I had managed to bear it.

And this would be the year when I would pet those cats.

I was sure of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Some notes about stuff in the chapter:**

 **-A hosozao shamisen is a traditional Japanese instrument that looks a bit like a guitar or a banjo, with a square body and thin neck. Plastic is often used for student's hosozao shamisens, and cat skin can be used for more traditional versions.**

 **-The song Tomo sings is called Tsuki to Taiyou no Meguri from Lupin III. You can find the lyrics on Anime Lyrics; I don't own it or Lupin III or Lupin IV.**

 **-The Tsukiji Market is a popular fish market in Tokyo.**

 **-I don't own Terra 2001 (released September 1999), Love Goes On, or Sōshunfu.**

 **I also don't own Azumanga Daioh or any of the scenes or characters associated with it.**

 **Thanks for reading, and thanks to** **James** **Birdsong** **for the review. Now, onto Chapter Two...**

* * *

Chapter Two

Dreams, I've found, reside in a hazy, undefined place that's somewhere between dozing off and alertness But you can't really force yourself to daydream— just sit yourself down and tell yourself, _I'm going to daydream right now_ _._

It's better to let your subconscious leak out thoughts or images that have been floating around to rise to the surface of your imagination.

Then there's the problem of having your daydreaming disrupted, usually some sort of question awaiting. Such as, "Would you read that paragraph out loud?" or "Could you interpret these sentences for the class, please?"

Different senseis tossed out these usual inquiries as the first four days of school went by. Students were lethargic from the new routine, the long hours spent taking notes, the hassle of not knowing who was who quite yet, so it wasn't a surprise that there were some who zoned out in class.

Yet no one was so efficient, or strange, as picking out the daydreamers as Tanizaki-sensei — or Yukari-sensei, as my classmates had begun to call her.

(The senseis never caught me, though. They tend not to notice those who are tall, quiet, and sit at the back of the class).

It would be the middle of a lesson. Everything would be going well. Yukari-sensei would be teaching English and then, as she noticed a student drifting off from the lesson to spend some time inside his or her own head—

"Hasegawa!" Yukari-sensei would call out — or yell, most of the time. "Stop staring into space like an idiot and answer the damn question!"

Or:

"Kaorin! Why are you gazing so intently at the ceiling and blushing like a moron and smiling like a lovey-dovey dolt? Do I have to come over there and turn the page for you?"

Or:

"Matsuda! What are you doodling? Is it —" dramatic gasp "—a boy?"

None of them had expected these kinds of questions, and so the best that they could do was to mumble sorry, and try not to drift off again. I felt sympathetic for them. None of them sat by the windows, so all they could do was stare straight ahead and hope they wouldn't get caught.

I found that my habit of gazing out the window — giving me space to conjure daydreams — was even more pleasant in high school. Not that classes were boring—no, they were rarely boring. It just gave me some space to hide in plain sight. It let me forget how tall I was, how I was hearing whispers in the halls, how the loneliness wasn't melting away.

Daydreaming was definitely a comfort during the last class of the day.

That fourth day, a Thursday, the final class was music, and so that meant about an hour of listening to my fellow classmates playing various instruments. This was occasionally entertaining, but mostly annoying; Tomo Takino playing a hosozao shamisen fell into the second category. I wasn't quite sure how playing the shamisen could be very difficult, as its boxy body and lengthy neck allowed room for only three strings.

Tomo, as the final student to go, had the choice of choosing whatever song she wanted to play. She was attempting to preform a song from the remake of the Lupin III movie made about two years ago. She had told us this, her tone even more excited then usual, before launching into the first verse.

The song itself wasn't bad—it was about love, giving up your life for love, and a setting sun. But the way Tomo was picking the shamisen with her nails was as bad as when Yukari-sensei scratched the chalk too on the board.

I shifted in my seat. My skirt was sticking to my thighs, and the seat itself was hard, the sharp wooden edges pressing into the back of my legs with determination. Beads of sweat swarmed down my arms, and I swatted them away.

While Tomo began the third verse, I glanced out the window, thinking of how one of the clouds looked like a cat's face. I could make out the pointed ears, and one of the smaller clouds was a nose. There were even some airplane streaks in the sky, like whiskers.

I wondered what would happen if I managed to get close enough to one of the neighborhood cats. I had only seen glimpses of them—napping in a warm patch of sunlight on a wall surrounding a house, hiding under a bush, or sniffing around the main gates of houses, before they sprang away, out of my sight. What if I managed to find more than one cat? Which one would I pet?

 _There's a couple of brown cats…I've always liked brown cats…but there's also that white cat with brown spots, and that tan cat with white markings, and that all-white cat…and then there's that little gray kitty…he's the cutest out of all of them…_

Tomo was singing about how the narrator was crying, their tears falling, except they didn't know why they were crying, since they weren't sad at all. I tried to ignore her; I wanted to dream up a daydream. I didn't feel like listening to anyone right then.

I pictured myself on the sidewalk near my house…I was walking home from school…and then a cat appeared, padding its way down the sidewalk. I couldn't picture the details of the cat's face completely. I could imagine its ears, and its cute little eyes, and its pink nose, but those were mere shapes, mere images. They held no reality.

"…all for your sake!"

Tomo's sung exclamation brought me back—back to my desk, to the sweat, to the sun beaming down from the window.

"I thought that last line was something else," Yukari-sensei said, awakening at her desk with a snore. "Have you finished torturing us yet?"

"That's never going to happen, Sensei! And you'll never stop me, even if you want me too!"

"Who says I won't stop you?" Yukari-sensei demanded, rising to her feet, her eyes filling with an unquenchable fire.

"Me!" Tomo replied, gazing at the shamisen. She thumped the material covering its body, making a dull _thwap_.

"Hand it over, Tomo," Yukari-sensei said, holding her palm out in front of her, her voice softening to boredom beyond belief once again. " 'Kay." Tomo said, giving the shamisen to Yukari-sensei with a sigh. "Man, I wish that shamisen was made out of something better than plastic!" she said as she walked back to her desk. "They should give the student players cat skin shamisen too!"

 _Cat…skin…?_

My thoughts felt incredibly slow as I processed Tomo's words.

 _Cat…skin…shamisen…w-what?_

There was no way I could keep myself from falling into the turmoil of a horrorstruck daze. I could feel my mouth falling open in shock, feel shivers run though my body. Who cared if someone saw me, and asked what was wrong, and I would have to explain myself? That didn't matter.

 _Cat…skin…shamisen…!_

From somewhere far away, I heard Yukari-sensei ruffle some papers on her desk.

"The time has come, my wonderful little brats—er, children—to write down what you want to be when you are all grown up," she announced . " Just know that what you write down probably won't happen anyway. You have three sections to write down whatever job you want — but don't put down anything more then three jobs, or you'll get in trouble !"

"I'm not afraid!" Tomo, having sat back down at her desk, stood up again. "Torture me all you like! Beat me with red-hot irons! Destroy my favorite food! Tell Yomi she doesn't need to diet more—"

"Tomo, what did I tell you—" Yomi began, light from overhead making the lenses of her glasses flash white.

"I will never give in!" Tomo finished.

Yukari-sensei shrugged. "Since you're already standing, come up here and pass these out to the class, why don't you?" She held the stack of papers out.

"But it's Chiyo-chan's turn—"

"Chiyo-chan's turn is tomorrow! Now, get up here, or I'll call the director of Lupin IV and make them cancel."

"You wouldn't."

Silence on Yukari-sensei's end, but I began to not pay attention to the conversation once I noticed that the shamisen was still lying on her des .

 _Cat…skin…shamisen…_

 _That's horrible...that's so horrible..._

My thoughts filled with machines ripping cats apart, and their skin, still covered with fur, tacked onto an instrument—

"Hey, what's wrong? Did you realize how fat Yomi is and go into a coma?"

"Tomo! Stop embarrassing me in front of our classmates!"

I blinked, visions of terrible things happening to innocent cats leaving my head as I stared up at Tomo. She held out a sheet of paper towards me, and shook it.

"Are you gonna take it?"

"Y-yeah…" I mumbled, taking the offered sheet from her. I knew what I wanted to write down for my career choices. I simply was unsure if they would become actual jobs, or were only the dreams of a little girl. Or not such a little girl, as I very well knew.

As Tomo moved past me, handing out more career sheets to other students, I turned to gaze out the window again. I tried to breathe, and put the thoughts of dying cats aside for a moment to focus.

I wondered if there even were classes I could take in college to learn how to be a salesperson. There couldn't be any way I could just be somehow accepted into a college that focused on the higher arts of forcing people to buy things they weren't entirely sure they needed.

 _An economics course...? Would that even work?_

 _But it's not like that would be my first choice anyway..._

A college focused on obtaining a degree in veterinary would be perfect.

Except for the small fact that I probably needed to take some type of course to understand all the material that college classes would cover.

 _I'd just like to be a vet—_

 _Dong…dong…dong…dong…dong…_

The bell was chiming, removing me from my head and back into real life.

"Class dismissed!" Yukari-sensei said. She seemed much more alert then she had been during the majority of the day. "Now, get to cleaning this classroom, or I'll fail you!"

Luckily, I didn't have cleaning duty that day. I was glad for that, so glad for that, as I put some loose papers into my briefcase, got to my feet, and made my way across the tiled floor. Students practically stopped their conversations to move apart so I could go by. I could feel myself shrinking down into myself, shutting down, not bothering to fake a smile as I headed in the direction of the door.

It was a habit, the way I was walking with my shoulders curved and my head bowed and long strides. And now, I was turning it into a coping mechanism.

Finally, finally, I was out of the classroom and walking down the hall, past crowds of fellow students. I could see over all their heads.

"It's Sakaki-san!" I heard a girl I didn't know whisper to a group of her friends. "Just look at her hair! It's so beautiful!"

 _Friends..._

My throat felt tight, and my pace picked up as I hurried through the hallways, an increasing amount of whispers and stares following me.

 _Stupid girl..._

And then I was standing outside my shoe locker.

 _Just ignore her._

I switched my inside shoes off for my outdoor shoes. It was easy enough to head towards the courtyard, where other students had gathered after classes let out. No one blocked my way.

The students turned to look at me as I opened the doors and came outside. Their expressions seemed to say that I was some long-promised idol who had finally arrived.

I tried to ignore them, tried to ignore the excitement I felt leeching off of them as I walked by, aiming for the school's entranceway. I didn't want this attention…I wanted _none_ _of it_ …

I realized I was, at last, outside the school, beside the outer walls. I was free; I could go home and hug plush cats to my chest and relax.

Sighing, I leaned against the wall for a moment, closing my eyes. The stones were warm against my back. Sunlight had been heating them all day, and I could smell their dusty odor, underlining the faint traces of sweat from P.E. class and fresh fish—

I opened my eyes with a start.

 _Fresh fish—? What—? Where—?_

I glanced around. No one walking past me, as far as I could tell, was carrying fish from the Tsukiji Market, and it's not as if anyone would be eating fish in the street…

A whisp of white fuzz caught my eye, and I glanced down to see one of the fluffiest cats I had ever seen.

Its fur was shades of white and cream, its head and neck light brown. As it padded down the road, the cat held a fish in its mouth, which smelt of salt and brine. The cat's tail was sticking straight up in the air in its fish-related happiness. The tail must have been what had caught my eye, for it was just as fluffy, perhaps even more, then the cat itself.

 _How did it get the fish, and why is it so fluffy?_

The cat turned its head to look at me, and I think I blushed. I must have blushed.

People probably think it strange, that someone like me would blush, that blood rises to coat my face, paints it in shades of rose and flame and sunset.

But I do blush. Just as I was blushing upon seeing the cat's face. But I couldn't fault myself, could I? After all, the cat was extremely cute.

Its eyes were blue, that was what I noticed first. I had only seen blue cat eyes in pictures before.

And it had a little pink nose, bright pink, which twitched upon the cat noticing that a human was happy, so happy, simply gazing at it.

The cat trekked off, satisfied that the staring human hadn't tried to pick it up, especially with such a delicious meal in tow — oh, but I wanted to pick it up! I wanted to have a cat cuddle against me, I wanted to hear it let out a _nya_.

I let out another sigh as I watched the cat walk down the road.

At least I had seen a cat's face that was real, and not imagined. That was something.

My legs felt unsteady as I stood up straight and stopped leaning against the wall. Maybe that was only because of how cute that cat was…didn't cute things make people feel like they were going to faint?

As I bent down to get my briefcase, I wondered if there were any animals that fainted.

But never mind that; I had to get home, to the catless house I shared with my family.

It was still a fine house, I corrected myself as I began to walk down the street, away from school. It was a good house in the neighborhood, although it wasn't a mansion like some of the houses I had seen nearby my own — well, I hadn't seen those mansions, not really. The walls surrounding those estates tended to block most of your view of the houses.

It wasn't a long trip from the high school to my house, and I tried to let myself just walk and relax. It wasn't that hard; warm weather always made me feel a bit sleepy and calm, as if the sunlight was stroking me with its rays.

I wanted to relax a little; high school was as hard as I expected it to be. The nightly homework made me stay up late, and there was a lot of notetaking for every hour, but I would get used to it. It would become normal.

Maybe worrying about other students treating me like I was better than them would become normal too.

The thought rang false, filled with doubt. The only normalcy that I would be able to have would be the constant feeling of fakery. Because that was the problem when people admired you when there wasn't anything admirable about you in the first place—it was as though their perception of you was a lie.

At least in daydreams, I didn't have to think about any of that.

As I approached my house, and went past the nameplate hanging on the outside wall, I stopped for a moment on the walkway to catch my breath . Two stories high, the house was painted a light blue, almost the color of the sky. I could see my window on the second floor, the sloping gray roof shooting up to a point above it.

I went inside, automatically taking my shoes off in the genkan, and putting on a pair of slippers. The house was empty, save me. My father was still at work. My mother and Otouto, I supposed, were off grocery shopping or with one of Otouto's friends and his or her mother.

Padding upstairs in my slippers, I entered my bedroom, and my eyes swept over the familiar space. The walls, painted tan. A blue dresser right by the door, holding my uniforms and everyday clothes and pajamas and underthings. The light green sofa by the windows; the lavender draperies behind it letting some light. The desk, with the gray desk lamp on top with its rounded metal lampshade and circular base. The small clay cylinder on top, where pens and pencils waited. Beside it, the thirty-something books shelved between rectangular gray bookends. Then the desk chair, a block of rectangular wood, sanded smooth and topped with a dark blue cushion — small enough to fit inside the hollowed out inside of the desk.

I couldn't forget about the nightstand, either; it was where I kept all these little parts of my personality. That wasn't to say the lamp that rested on top, with its fortune-teller's globe and metal stand, was any sign of my secret desire to run away to live in a caravan; I had just liked how it had looked in the shop window . There was a picture of my family on the nightstand, too: my parents and Otouto and my grandparents and several aunts and uncles and cousins. And myself. I could always pick myself out in a picture, the way I towered over everyone else…

 _Deep breaths, Sakaki_ , I told myself as I sat down onto the sofa, the strap of my briefcase loosing from my shoulder and sinking to the floor.

 _Deep breaths._

 _It doesn't matter that I don't have a cat right now…I'll get one eventually, and I'll take care of it, and it'll let me pet it…and I won't have to worry about how…how any allergies might keep me from owning it…_

I realized there was wetness at the corners of my eyes.

I drew in another deep breath.

 _There's no use crying over something you know you can't have._

I was just tired, that was all. I was tired from the new schedule and staying up later to do homework and the random outbursts of Yukari-sensei . I was tired of the admiring looks I was getting in the hallways, in the cafeteria, PE class…

Earlier today, after we had all changed for PE class, Tomo had declared she would race me. But there hadn't been enough time for a race proper before Kurosawa-sensei had arrived, and so the girl who was becoming known as the wildcat of the school decided that we would race tomorrow.

I had nothing against athletics. There were times when I even liked the feeling of wind whipping by me as I ran, times when it was nice to swim easily. But it would never be so important, so precious, to me as cute things were.

I swallowed, a lump dissolving in the back of my throat.

 _I'm fake._

 _Just put it aside...just put it aside..._

I got to my feet, leaving my briefcase where it was. I shuffled over to my nightstand, the desk on the left, my bed on the right, and knelt down in front of it. My eyes were level with the CDs I had collected over the years; I liked to shelve them from most recent to least, left to right.

The CD to the farthest left was _Terra 2001_ , by The Brilliant Green. I had bought it only about seven months earlier, and I always loved it when the disc started to play the third song, Brownie the Cat. Even though the song was in English, I could follow along to some extent, and I loved the tune.

I brushed my finger over the other albums, _Love Goes On_ by Dreams Come True; _Sōshunfu_ , by Candles; more CDs that I had found in old stores and in birthday presents and bought with New Year's money. Then I glanced down, at the gray cardboard bow stored under the nightstand, and my hands were unfolding the flaps before I knew it.

Inside the box was my collection of stuffed cats.

Not taxidermied stuffed cats, but plush cats dreamed up by someone who had an eye for cuteness and fluffiness. Someone who had true artistic talent. Someone who, I was sure, knew what it was like to be a girl who wanted to shrink down, wanted the proportions of her body to resemble something that was cute.

For now, I would have to simply relish in the fact that my mother was not, at the very least, allergic to stuffed cats. If I could somehow get a cat one day…well, I didn't expect its cuteness to rub off of me. But it would be something cute that I could have.

I couldn't put words, exactly, to why I loved cute things so much. Perhaps it was some sort of form of attempting to comfort myself; even if I wasn't cute, then at least cute things could surround me. Or maybe I would always have loved cute things, even if I hadn't always been so…so big.

But as I took out the different stuffed cats from the box, exclaimed over them, hugged them to my chest, situated a larger fluffy gray cat on my bed so I wouldn't have to get him out again before I went to bed, the worries and annoyances and the wishing — the wishing that never worked out — all shifted to the back of my head.

I was in my element, my home, my place where I could blush without embarrassment over cute cats, and that was enough, right then.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I don't own Azumanga Daioh, or any of the characters or scenes associated with it. I also don't own Pac Man, Rally-X, or Splatterhouse. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Chapter Three

I was sitting at my desk, my bento box packed away and the clouds drifting by in the sky outside the window. It was Friday, the second Friday in high school. I kept feeling surprised, in bursts and starts of wonder, at how fast everything seemed to be moving.

It wasn't only hours of classes that dragged on for a while and then ended in a second; I was becoming aware of how the other students' admiration hadn't slowed. I supposed it was a bit like Chiyo Mihama's situation. People talked to her, and were nice to her, but they hadn't climbed over the carefully built fences of politeness.

Chiyo was lucky, though. No one made up rumors that she was a champion at athletic tournaments, that her quiet personality was, in reality, a sign of how she was a terror of the streets, or how her hair was all the rage among fashion models.

You'd think that they would know better—fashion models dyed their hair. And, as far as I knew, none of them wore bangs.

It was becoming clear that, unlike other students, Tomo Taniko could care less about politeness. She didn't hold back on saying anything to anyone; it was as if the words were out of her mouth the moment she thought of them. Annoying, yes, but I could live with it.

I had to live with listening to Tomo, since she and Yomi met daily to eat lunch at Yomi's desk—the desk next to mine. Like me, they hadn't strayed into the cafeteria besides that first Monday. Unlike me, they had each other, a friend to rely on, someone to help you out when you needed it most.

Or, in Yomi's case, Tomo was someone to bother you when you needed it least. Tomo could have been trying to drive Yomi insane with all her chatter. Her topics ranged from Yukari-sensei's insensitivity, to how the quality of vending machine food was deceasing by the day, to how Yomi needed to cut back on the carbs. In the midst of my eavesdropping while eating, I hoped that this was their regular routine, and Tomo actually cared for her smarter friend. I didn't see how Yomi could have stood it all, otherwise.

I didn't try to approach them, despite sitting right next to them. It was nice to focus on something besides my daydreams for a while. Anyway, they would have expected me to talk like the popular figure they thought I was, and I didn't have the energy for that.

So what if it seemed like that, behind Tomo's talking and Yomi's sarcastic retorts, they were nice? That would all die away the minute they were in the presence of a rumored award-winning racer.

It was kind of a relief that by the end of lunchtime they would leave to get drinks from the vending machine, and I would have the sky to myself.

That Friday, there was a mass of clouds scuffling along, blooming into a group of fluffy white swirls. My mind was peaceful, focusing on the clouds and their blue background and the sun blaring its light in the middle of the sky.

I first thought of the cat as an outline, black-and-white, and then I filled it in with brown tabby stripes. It let out a cry that I knew wasn't as good as the real thing. But then, it didn't matter, because the cat was looking up at me, and then it turned around and tottered a few steps away from me.

And then it began to run.

I let out a laugh, a laugh I kept stored away for my family, and began to chase after it. But it wasn't far away — it was right beside me, and I was skipping beside it, laughing even more—

"Um..."

I turned my head; the particles of skipping along with a cat running beside me vanished.

There beside me was the ten year old genius herself. Chiyo Mihama.

She was smart enough to keep her nervousness under control, but I could still tell...

I scare even children. No way a cat is ever going to run alongside me.

"I—I'm collecting the career surveys….could I take yours?" Chiyo asked, her fingers gripping her stack of sheets, lest she drop them in her nervousness. Yukari-sensei had given us until today to complete the surveys; it seemed that Chiyo had waited last to get to me.

Reaching down to the side of my desk, I opened my bag, and after a minute, managed to find my sheet. I wondered what Chiyo would think what she saw it. She wouldn't be able not to see it.

"Here," I said as I held the piece of paper out to her. I felt giant and awkward, as though my hand, snaking out in front of me, was going to hit Chiyo on the head. It was a strange feeling, as though my body was not mine; my body was, instead, a weapon that could soil the floor with blood.

And then the feeling passed, and I noticed that Chiyo's face had shifted to less controlled terror. I could almost hear her thinking, _She's scary…_

 _What was that about? Why did I feel like that? I'm not violent. I wouldn't hurt anyone._

In the distance, I heard Tomo say, "I can't believe that the vending machine's broken! You'd think they would import better models."

"Oh, get over it, Tomo," Yomi said. "It's just soda, you'll survive."

"It had the best Coke in the school," Tomo complained. "All the other Cokes are too warm."

I didn't hear Yomi's reply, for Chiyo finally took my paper, hands trembling, and glanced down at it.

I thought of what I had written down. I wanted to stop thinking of that feeling, that horrible, violent, sensation. I had to.

 _Vet._ That would be the best job ever. I could help hurt animals; I could make sure that pets would not fall ill; I could even spend time with cute animals. I would be giving back to the world, helping loving pet owners. And if I could never be one of those loving pet owners myself, then this would be the next best thing. Besides, I wasn't worried as much about knowing information for college classes; some lengthy online searches throughout the week had helped soothe most of my concerns.

 _Florist._ My mother had taught me how to arrange flowers, and it was satisfying in a way I hadn't expected it to be. While it wasn't the best job in the world, I liked flowers well enough to consider making bouquets for a living.

 _Plushie salesperson._ I would have access to cute things all day, every day. The only problem I could see was that I would have to let them go.

Chiyo glanced up from my paper. She looked much calmer, as though some switch had flipped in her head, awaking a lightbulb of realization.

"Bye," she said. She set off for Yukari-sensi's desk, and I guessed with a sigh that the lightbulb had died. It looked as though I was so intimidating a ten year old waited until the last possible moment to approach me. So much for Chiyo realizing anything about me.

 _Bye_ , I thought in return; shame and sadness were perching on my shoulders. _I'm sorry I scared you. I hope…I hope you know I didn't mean it._

 _I never mean it._

* * *

Later that day, we had to change for PE.

I have never liked having to change for PE.

Someone is always going to stare. Not in a mean way, of course. But I know, I _know_ , that all the girls wonder over how I got to be like this, tall and shapely.

(The boys probably wonder too, but that's a bit of a different situation.)

As I brought my shirt down over my head, tucked my arms through the sleeves, and adjusted the fabric, I thought I heard whispering behind me.

Darn.

And I had been feeling glad that the shirt fit me; I would have thought they might not have the size I need designed at all.

I couldn't help hearing the last few whispers. The changing room was mostly empty by that point; having less people staring made changing more bearable.

"….Sakaki-san's really cool?"

"…little scary…better then…boys… totally the strong and silent…!?"

 _Cool…scary…_

 _Just ignore them._

My bloomers fit fine; I hoped no one had seen the panties I was wearing. A cute cat…none of my classmates would expect that from me. But I liked wearing them.

If I couldn't be cute, then at least I could wear cute things.

 _Why do they have to see me as cool and scary when I'm neither of those things? And being "strong and silent"… is that it? Is that why?_

 _But I can't help but be a fast runner, or hit a ball so it flies like it's meant too. And I…I've never been good with talking to people. I don't usually reach out to them._

I turned my head, to see who was behind me.

It was Chihiro and Kaori — no, Kaorin.

I envied Kaorin. She was short enough, younger-seeming enough, to love cute things and get away with it. No one would be surprised if she was excited every time she saw a cat.

They noticed me watching them, and I was pleased that they didn't look very scared. It was more like awe spread across their faces.

I nodded in their direction. Part of me wanted to talk to them, but the other part…well, I wasn't afraid, not exactly. I felt tense, tight, as if I was immobile.

What would happen, I wondered, if I actually spoke more then a few words, if I tried to push past my shyness?

I wouldn't find out anytime soon.

That was obvious from the way I spoke not a word to the two girls, and left the changing room in a rush. As I walked down the hallway to the field, I tried to hold onto the fact that there was always the few precious hours of freedom tomorrow. I could spend time at the arcade, pretending that no one thought it strange that I, of all people, was trying to get cat plushies.

But pretending was worth it, was always worth it, even if I couldn't get a Neko Koneko.

* * *

The stuffed cat dropped with a thump as the claw released it, and I felt myself smile.

 _I finally got one! And it's so cute! I wonder what I should name it…_

It was the next day, Saturday, and I was battling one of the claw crane games. I had noticed the machine as I passed by the arcade Thursday afternoon. It was full of stuffed animal cats; they looked almost as cute as the real thing.

 _I'm so glad for Saturdays,_ I thought as I picked up my sole plushie. _Yukari-sensei pays even less attention then she usually does, because it's a half-day, and I know I can come here to get cute things._

I examined my stuffed cat. It was cute and fluffy, with a little pink nose, white fur and the way it looked like it might meow at any moment.

"Awww…" I murmured as I hugged it to my chest. It might not be a real cat, but it was mine, and I could pet it all I wanted to.

"Hey, Sakaki-san!"

 _Oh, crap! Someone's seen me._

I turned around to face Kaorin, shoving the cat behind my back. I noticed she was wearing a miniskirt, along with a hoodie. I could never wear a miniskirt, and I never would; I was simply too tall.

She was smiling, not at all put off by the uncertainty I was sure I was showing.

"Were you in the arcade?" she asked.

"Y-yeah…" I managed to say.

"Do you like to play those fighting games and racing games and stuff?"

"Yeah, kind of…"

 _No, actually I like to play this claw crane game, right behind me, except I can't tell you because then you'll see that I like cute things, and I don't know if I want you to see…_

Her hair was pretty, like how sunlight catches a cat's fur sometimes when they're lying on top of a wall. And you can't take your eyes away from the cat. It is as though you're trapped in a bubble filled with a beautiful, childlike, wonder; the bubble only pops when the cat gets to its paws and tears down the street, away from you.

But Kaorin didn't look as though she was preparing herself to run away from me.

With a start, I realized she was in the middle of speaking.

"…so cool! I'm no good at those!"

I felt nervousness seep into me, heard my heartbeat in my ears.

 _The truth is, Kaorin, I'm no good at those either._

"Maybe you could teach me a few tricks sometime!" Kaorin continued.

"Sure," I agreed.

 _Say something else!_ I told myself. _Open your mouth and speak. This could be a chance to make a friend._

"Um…Kaorin…"

"Yes?" She looked interested, I noticed in relief.

"…if you want me to help you now, I could…"

"Really ?" She looked delighted. "Yes! That'd be great!"

Kaorin turned away from me for a moment, to scan the part of the arcade we could see from the entrance. "I wonder which games we should play. I guess you would know best, though, huh?"

I transferred the cat plushie into my jacket pockets, wincing as I realized it might become squished and not quite as fluffy. Was that the price I would have to pay for continuing to act tough?

"Ah!"

Kaorin's exclamation brought me back out of my head and into the reality that was my height. My unusual height. Couldn't Kaorin be a bit taller? Couldn't _anyone_?

"Those plush cats are so cute!" Kaorin said, a smile bursting open on her face as she stared at the claw crane game behind me. I realized she must have turned back around and then caught sight of the cats.

"Oh…" I murmured. "Y-yeah…" _Kaorin thinks they're cute too…it's nice that someone else thinks that…_

"Do you want to start looking at arcade games, Sakaki-san?" Kaorin asked, tearing her gaze away from the claw crane game and towards me.

"Sure…"

"I didn't know they had any cat plushies here. I wonder where they got them from," Kaorin mused as we headed deeper into the arcade, for the claw crane game was standing outside the entrance. The beeps of games, the shouts of players, and the clicking of buttons filled the air, creating a mixture of sounds that held a certain permanence, as stable as the heavy arcade games bolted to the floor.

I thought for a moment of a meadow filled with living cat plushies, all different colors, bumbling around and making nya-like noises. They were fluffy and had wide eyes that seemed to see everything and were indescribably cute.

"What is it, Sakaki-san?" Kaorin asked as I felt myself blush and tremble a little at the thought of such cute cats.

"No—nothing…" I managed to say, trying to stop trembling, trying to stop acting as though I ceased functioning when drifting off into daydreams.

"Oh…" Kaorin said, shivering as the breeze from the air conditioning hit us. "I sometimes wish that they didn't have air conditioning at all," she continued. "It always makes me so cold when I feel it and it's not summer yet."

"Yeah."

"Oh! Sakaki-san!"

"Mm?"

"I meant to tell you — you were great in that race against Tomo yesterday, before P.E. class started!"

"Oh…thank you…" _It wasn't that hard, even though she…well…_ I blushed just thinking about it.

"But I can't believe she made you move back just because of how you had that advantage over her," Kaorin continued as we passed a Pac-Man console, then a Rally-X game, then several more, all with different drawings and music and pixilating. "That was really rude of her, to point out something like that!"

I nodded in silent agreement; it had been rather rude of Tomo to tell me to move back eight centimeters because of the size of my chest. Yet, Kaorin's commiserating made what Tomo had said feel not so embarrassing, in a strange way. Someone had taken offense on my behalf, and was vocalizing that to me. It felt important, even though I supposed that so many people took it for granted.

I didn't want to take it for granted. I wanted to cherish it instead.

As we walked through the arcade, I watched as the screens of the games meandered past, the color blurring into a mix of light blue, rose, orange, turquoise, the yellow of a painted sun, several speeding red cars, rolling hills of virtual green treetops, a little blue mouse trying to avoid bright pink cats, a bright neon green background covered with orange dots…

"Sakaki-san! Sakaki-san!"

I blinked as I glanced down to see Kaorin tugging at my sleeve, blushing. It was the same way I must blush whenever I saw something cute in front of me, blood rushing to my face to tell the world that whatever in front of me was something I wanted to squeeze, and never let go of.

It was strange to see Kaorin blush in front of me.

I wondered why she was.

"You stopped walking for a moment, there," Kaorin explained, letting go of my jacket. "Is everything okay?"

She genuinely looked worried about me, despite the fact that I must have seemed so tough to her, so much like a solitary stone. Her worry was a worry that seemed to go further than her earlier annoyance with Tomo. It was a worry that seemed to show that she cared.

Had I really been thinking about my lack of friends days ago?

"I—I'm fine," I stammered, as I shoved my hands deep in my pockets to check if the plush cat was still there. Relief filled me as I felt its fur against my fingers. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Kaorin said, smiling once more. "I was looking around for some games we could play when I noticed you weren't behind me anymore. I didn't see many racing games, but there's a fighting game, over there!"

She motioned to a typical looking game counsel, with a joystick and two buttons on each side. What was not typical was the title of the game.

 _Splatterhouse_ , I read from the screen as we stepped closer to get a better look. The letters looked like they were dripping blood, and the faint music coming from the game sounded terrifying.

I shuddered as I imagined bleeding, half-dead cats covered in festering wounds, and my hands burrowed deeper into my jacket pockets.

I wasn't going to think about that feeling from yesterday, as though I had been a threatening delinquent for a moment. I had to push it away; I couldn't let those stupid rumors get to me.

"We…we should play something else…" The quiet words spilled out of me as I squeezed the plush cat in my panic. "Those poor cats…who would do such a thing?"

"Hmm?" Kaorin said, her back toward me, the hood of her jacket dimly visible in the glow of the arcade. She was once more glancing around, looking for another video game. "Sure, we don't have to play that, if you don't want to." Oddly enough, Kaorin seemed relieved; had she not wanted to play Splatterhouse in the first place?

But I shoved that thought aside as I scanned the arcade alongside her.

 _Being tall has its occasional advantages_ , I thought as I was able to come to a conclusion sooner then Kaorin: most of the video games around us were already in the middle of the second level.

"I… I don't think …" I began, in my usual hushed tone.

 _I can't talk any louder then that? I just have to speak barely above a whisper?_

 _Why do I have to be so—so—_

"Ah!" Kaorin exclaimed in understanding, and she turned back around to face me, her face the image of disappointment. "Sakaki-san, it looks like all the games are being played. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," I managed quietly, always quietly). "Don't worry…"

I brought my hands out of my pockets. Maybe I would have patted her on the shoulder. Maybe I would have adjusted my hair.

I'd never know, because I felt something soft brush against my hand, my left hand, and I glanced down to see the plush cat on the floor.

 _Oh crap what if she sees what if anyone sees I can't let them see—_

I bent down quickly — it looked as though it was useful that I had an athlete's reflexes after all — and scooped up the plush cat. I stuffed in back in my pocket, my breath coming in little gusts of wind, my jacket rubbing against my shirt, as I stood up.

But Kaorin hadn't noticed. She was gazing into space, contentment softening her face, her mind soaring down some path of thought. She was blushing again, I realized, as I waved a hand in front of her eyes.

"Um…K—Kaorin?"

She stiffened in surprise, and blinked. "Hmm? Sorry, I…uh…" Her blush increased.

"It's fine," I repeated.

"Um…" Kaorin seemed embarrassed, her head inclining towards her shoes. The blood rushing to her face increased by tenfold. I waited for her. I knew how hard it could be to speak.

She swallowed and managed to keep on speaking. "I, uh, know crane games aren't at all like regular video games, but I've never been able to get anything from them, and since you said you like racing and fighting games I wondered if, maybe —"

"I'll do it," I interrupted her, feeling once more for the plush cat in my pockets. I would have done crane games any day, every day, if only it meant that I would get something in return.

"Really?" Kaorin looked back up at me, her eyes wide; she was surprised, I thought, and grateful. "You would do that for me? Something as boring as a crane—"

"I'll do it," I said again. "I—it's fine."

"Thank you, Sakaki-san!"

She bowed her head to me.

I gave her a small nod of my head in return.

It looked like I had gotten something extra, something hidden behind the plush cat grasped in the claw. Even though my classmates thought I was cool and strong and silent and scary, I still could get the chance make someone happy. And that someone cared about me, wanted to spend time with me, wanted to see me happy in return.

 _Thank you, Kaorin. Thank you so much._

 _You have no idea how happy I feel._


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Finally got this up! I hope you enjoy it, even with the angst/anxiety. Thanks to SmoothKaz for the review, the favorite, and the follow.**

 **And a FYI— I edited the previous three chapters a little. Go back and reread if you would like to.**

 **As always, I don't own Azumanga Daioh.**

* * *

Chapter Four

It was Monday morning, and there was a cat in front of me.

The cat lay on top of a neighbor's wall, paws tucked in close to its chest, its tail curled around its side. I could hear soft snores coming from it.

I couldn't believe my luck. A cat, a real cat, and nothing was preventing me from petting it. Nothing except the attendance taking in homeroom, and that wasn't for another half hour or so. Getting up early to keep an eye out for cats on the way to school had paid off at last.

I took a few steps closer, trying to not stomp, to not appear threatening, and then the cat opened its eyes.

For a moment, everything was still. I could feel my skirt brushing against my legs; the weight of my briefcase dragged at my right shoulder.

The cat was only a couple steps away; it would be easy enough to reach out a hand…

And so I reached out my left hand.

For a moment, my hand hung there, the back of it smooth and unbroken. I noticed that my hand wasn't shaking, I noticed I felt calm, so calm, and that feeling itself seemed odd. I had thought all along that I would feel excited beyond words at this moment.

But even that minor confusion slid to somewhere else as I realized what I was about to do.

I was finally going to pet a cat.

After reading about cats and looking at cats and buying stuffed cats, I was going to touch a real one.

I wondered if my mother would have a reaction, but I pushed that aside. It was selfish of me.

I wanted to focus on what was in front of me. I wanted to remember it all.

My hand.

The gray cat before it.

The air separating us, shrinking by the second.

The gray cat blinked its eyes, twitched its ears, and kept it gaze on me. I drew in a breath. It wasn't hissing, it wasn't sliding out its claws, it wasn't flattening its ears in anger...

I was having a staring contest with a cat, and it didn't seem to notice my hand as I moved it closer and closer and closer.

The gray cat almost seemed to grin as it opened its mouth wide, wider then I had expected it could, and—

I thought it might let out a yawn.

Instead, it bit my hand.

 _No no no no no—why—it hurts—why—_

The damaged nerves in my hand were sending spirals of information up my arm and past my collarbone and into my brain. Nuerons were pleading with me to get away from the source of pain as soon as possible, because dozens of tiny knives were cutting into my hand, and the nerves wouldn't stop splitting apart. They kept breaking, splintering into remnants of their previous selves.

 _Get it off of me…get it off of me…_

Something was crying inside of me, and I couldn't get that something to stop. I couldn't hold it, I couldn't soothe it.

I could only stand there, as the cat let go of my hand and raced away, as my hand bled, as everything seemed to fall down and shatter.

* * *

The second calamity that happened that morning was the staring.

I noticed it as I walked from the nurse's office to Class 1-3. The nurse had been kind enough to not ask me many questions about the teethmarks. Yet, as she had applied antiseptic and bandages, I wondered if she thought I had gotten the injury in a fistfight.

The murmurs, the gasps, and the whispers that trailed behind my feet were like pins sticking in my ears.

"Did you see—?"

"Her hand!"

"Who could she have knocked out?"

"How did she get away with only one injury?"

"Look at her face. She must have fought some idiot who thought he was smart enough to win."

 _My face?_ I wondered, grimacing at that comment.

 _You're idiotic enough to mistake sadness for anger, or annoyance, or triumph?_

 _What do they see when they look at my face?_

I tried to block the rest of it out—the sounds of admiring, fearful voices—as I hurried to class. I tried to rearrange my face into an expression that might pass for boredom. I had to show them that I was someone above all the rumors, someone cooler than a street fighter, someone who I was not at all alike.

I didn't know what else to do. The rumors were clinging to me, burrowing into me. I couldn't make them go away—I couldn't tell the other students that they were wrong. I couldn't break down in their midst, become a bundle of long hair and clothes and a bandage lying on the floor.

If I acted as though it didn't matter to me, as if their words were not damaging me at all, then it could all go away.

I saw the 1-3 sign above my head. I reached out my right hand and slid open the door.

I stepped inside the classroom, and shut the door behind me. I was safe.

A few students turned their heads to look at me; I hoped they hadn't heard the rumors. I needed some silence, some peace, some place where I didn't have to put up that mask.

I walked across the floor towards the windows. I couldn't help but notice that Yomi and Tomo and Chiyo had gathered around Chiyo's desk. The three of them were talking. Tomo seemed to have too much energy for so early in the morning. Yomi was making little effort to tell Tomo to stop, but her expression made it clear she was too tired to do much. Chiyo appeared to be happy that the two of them were there.

 _Why am I paying attention to them in the first place? So what if I thought they might seem like possible friends? That rumor is going to kill everything. Now there's evidence._

Chiyo caught my glance, and waved, a smile on her face.

"Hi, Sakaki-san!"

I waved back at her with my right hand. I hoped that my briefcase, and the bandaged hand encircling its handle, was out of sight. Something held me back, told me not to let the three of them think of me as a formidable fist fighter. Not yet.

Tomo and Yomi glanced over as well. Tomo grinned; Yomi yawned, and then rolled her eyes in Tomo's direction, as if to say, _Sorry about that._

"Yo, Sakaki! What's up?" Tomo asked as I walked down the aisle towards them, coming to a stop beside Chiyo's desk in the second row. "You look like Yomi sat on you!"

Yomi's eye rolling transformed into a full on glare. "Shut up."

I set down my briefcase on the floor—it seemed heavier than usual—as Tomo retorted, "You shut up."

Yomi yawned, covering her mouth with a hand. "That's the best you've got?"

"Just you wait—"

"Sakaki-san?" Chiyo asked, cutting off Tomo, a timid note to her tone.

I glanced her direction, and tried to build the foundations of a smile on my face. It might cover up the fact that my hand was aching—

"Is your hand all right?"

 _No!_

I realized I had been rubbing the bandage with my free hand. All three girls must have seen the injury. It was in plain sight.

 _No!_

"I'm fine," I muttered.

 _I have to go. I can't let them—they'll ask questions—_

I propelled my bandaged hand behind my back as I picked up my briefcase with the other. Turning to my right, I darted between the desks across from Chiyo's, leaving the three of them behind me. I wanted nothing more than to get to my seat by the windows.

 _I must have seemed so rude._

 _I don't care. They can live with it._

Those girls couldn't have wanted to talk to me, despite seeming so attentive. They wanted to have others take notice they were talking to me, that was it; they wanted a rise in status.

I wasn't going to fall for that; I didn't want to have to deal with fake friends on top of faking coolness.

I reached my desk. At least I could at least get away from nosy classmates here.

I placed my briefcase on its hook, slid onto my seat, and stared outside at the clouds. I needed to do something, anything, to get my mind off of the past few minutes.

While walking the rest of the way to school, a weight in my stomach had formed. Fashioned out of some hybrid of sadness, and weariness, and fear, it wouldn't let me stop thinking about the gray cat, the biting cat.

 _It could have been in a bad mood…cats aren't really morning animals. I could try again after school._

 _Maybe I would feel better if I did._

"Sakaki-san?"

It was Chiyo. Her voice came from behind me. She had come over to stand beside my desk.

I noticed this with a sense of detachment, a sense that it didn't matter what Chiyo did. Not to me.

I had to get through today, and the next day, and the next. The small details of other people's actions weren't important. They would end up lost in a haze of forgetfulness, anyway.

I could sense Chiyo's presence behind me. I could sense it, and I didn't want it there. It was meaningless. It was useless.

 _Leave me alone._

I continued to gaze out the window, noticing that grayish clouds had spread out to reach both ends of the sky. I wondered if a storm was coming.

"Um…S-sakaki-san?"

Would the neighborhood cats find shelter if it rained? Maybe my mom would let them huddle under the eaves. It was a bitter thought, a hope that died almost as soon as it awoke.

"Sakaki—"

 _I have to respond. She's not going to stop, otherwise._

"What?" I asked, still staring out at the sky. I wasn't about to face her. I couldn't. There was no point.

"I was wondering…Tomo and Yomi invited me to have lunch with them today…and I wondered if you would like to join us…"

 _They might ask me about my hand again…I don't want that to happen…_

 _And they could still want to be seen with me. Eating lunch with the delinquent who got in a fight this morning—that'd help them._

But a thought was quivering beneath the stew of anger and exhaustion and despair, and it made me pause.

 _This is the first time anyone here has asked me to eat lunch with them. And I did want to be friends with Chiyo, at least until last Friday._

I frowned at the memory.

Chiyo had asked me a question I wanted to have heard long ago, and I was going to say no. I was going to give this chance up, this single chance I had gotten, and for what? Because I was assuming that she wanted admiration from all?

What if I was wrong?

 _But what if I'm right?_

Six words left me in a rush, as if hurrying become sound waves, to vibrate their way through the air.

"Where—where would we be eating?"

"At Yomi's desk, I suppose," Chiyo-chan said. "She offered, and I think that all of us will fit."

The despair went away. The callousness of my thoughts about others went away as well, but I knew that was futile.

I couldn't think like that, and get away with it, not without guilt layering on top of me as I tried to fall asleep at night.

I glanced away from the window and towards Chiyo-chan. She looked so hopeful, so earnest. I couldn't crush her dreams, could I? Even if I had failed to pet a cat, I couldn't take that anger and shame out on Chiyo-chan.

My injury burned, reminding me what had happened because of my failure. It reminded me hat everything had seemed to fall, that I had fallen on the sidewalk, curling my knees to my chest, that I had shut my eyes against the sight of red drops on the concrete—the smell made me dizzy—

 _Put it aside. Just put it aside._

 _I can do something about it later._

 _Us..._

I steadied myself against my desktop, blinking myself out of my head. Chiyo-chan was still there, waiting. I remembered something about lunch, an invitation to lunch.

"That sounds fine," I said.

Chiyo-chan's smile was almost enough to make me forget about the ache in my hand.

The morning went on; no amount of unhappiness would stop time. Yukari-sensei gave us an English lesson peppered with random shouted exclamations. The clouds outside my window drifted by, regressing to a fluffy white color. I took notes, smudged and messier then usual — and I began to hope that the gray cat would, one day, let me pet it.

It might not be a morning cat.

Maybe it was hungry.

Or it was not used to people petting it. Still, I was hopeful that in time, it would become used to me.

The lunchtime bell rang, startling me out of my thoughts.

 _Oh…right. Lunch._

I glanced towards Yomi, who was taking out her bento box at the desk next to mine.

 _It's small…smaller then mine…oh, isn't she on a diet?_

Yomi must have felt my eyes on her, and glanced up. She smiled as she caught my gaze in hers.

"Hi," Yomi said, unwrapping her chopsticks. "You're welcome to come over here and sit. Tomo went to get a drink, so we have some peace and quiet for a while."

I hoped that I was showing some emotion close to friendliness as I picked up my box and pulled my chair over to the side of Yomi's desk, closest to my own.

"What do you have?" Yomi asked, glancing over at my bento as I untied the cloth wrapping and took off the lid.

There was the usual rice, with fried okara and vegetables on the side, along with some grilled fish. Leftovers from dinner never failed to make an apperance in my lunch, but at least they were better then food thrown together by hassled hands in the morning.

"That looks good," Yomi said. "I just have some rice and cabbage pickle and some salmon. It's not much, I know, but it's healthy."

"Y-yeah…aren't cabbage pickles spicy?" _Good job, Sakaki!_ I mentally congratulated myself. _You were able to ask a question._

"Oh." Yomi adjusted her glasses with the tip of her finger. "I guess so…but I've always liked spicy things…"

"I'm here, at last! You can stop being bored now!"

It was Tomo, of course. It wouldn't be anyone else, except the resident wildcat of the school, who pulled up a chair from a desk which wasn't hers. She sat down across from Yomi with a _thump,_ a smile, a bento box, and a can of Sprite.

I wondered if wild cats were as cute as the neighborhood cats. Actual wild cats, though, not hyper girls who had so much energy it made your head spin. Would wild cats have different fur patterns than domesticated cats? Did that make them look even cuter?

"Hey, Sakaki." Tomo nodded in my direction as she opened her can of soda.

I nodded back, wondering if she might make some lewd comment.

"What's with your bento box?" Yomi asked. She leaned across the desk to peer into her friend's lunch. I hoped that would be enough to distract Tomo.

"My bento box?" Tomo asked, outraged. "What do you mean, my bento box? What's wrong with my bento box?"

"You have chicken karaage and a bunch of onigiri!" Yomi protested. "Onigiri made with _white rice_!"

"So?"

"I have plain brown rice!"

"Yeah, because it's all part of your diet," Tomo teased, taking a sip of her drink.

"Shut it!" Yomi's glasses flashed as her fingers folded themselves to make a fist.

"Uh…Yomi-san?"

The last voice made the tension seep out of Yomi, made Tomo's grin even wider, and made me alert to the fact that Chiyo-chan was here.

 _Maybe this won't be so bad._

"Is everything alright?" Chiyo-chan asked, settling down her own lunch across from me. Her pigtails bobbed as she pulled up an extra chair and sat down. "Why were you and Tomo fighting?"

"We weren't fighting," Tomo insisted. "Yomi thought my lunch was too unhealthy. Like cabbage pickles won't make you gain a few pounds."

I could almost feel the waves of annoyance coming from Yomi. "Cabbage pickles are quite healthy, I'll have you know."

"They're _pickled_ ," Tomo said. "Pickled foods can't be healthy, right, Chiyo-chan?"

"Um…" Chiyo-chan seemed confused as she mulled over Tomo's question. "There are a lot of vitamins in pickled foods, but they can also be salty, so it's debatable."

"See?" Yomi said in triumph. "Vitamins make you healthy. Even you should know that, Tomo."

"Salt's not great for you, though," Tomo said.

"Then why are you eating onigiri?" Yomi asked. "That has salt in it."

Tomo placed a hand over the onigiri in her bento. They looked quite good, but her protective stance seemed a little much for mounds of rice. "Don't you dare insult my onigiri. I will defend it's honor to my last breath."

Yomi letting out a sigh. "Please don't make obscure references to _Lupin_. I've told you that again and again."

"That wasn't a reference to _Lupin_."

"Right, and you didn't drop those two water buckets in the hallway earlier this week."

"They were _heavy_ ," Tomo said, as if that was something rational Yomi had forgotten. "Geez, Yomi, stop being so…so Yomi!"

"That isn't even a good response." Yomi sighed, adjusting her glasses with a fingertip. "Now, eat your food, or I'll eat it for you."

Tomo glared at her, a shocked, pained, emotion in her eyes. Yet it had to be fake; she had to know Yomi was joking.

And then Tomo started to shovel down her food. I had no idea that chopsticks could move that fast.

"Is your hand any better, Sakaki-san?" Chiyo-chan piped up after we all watched Tomo eat for a moment.

I started, my spine straightening and my lungs drawing in a quick breath.

 _What do I say? What do I say? Why didn't I think of this earlier?_

"Yes," I said, the syllable like the sole, sharp, chime of a bell.

"That's good!" Chiyo-chan said, as she unwrapped her lunch and broke her chopsticks in half. "I'm glad that it's bandaged well. Did you put any ointment on it?"

"The…the nurse put some antiseptics on it."

"Good!" Chiyo-chan beamed. "I wouldn't want your hand to get worse, Sakaki-san. I'm glad the nurse knew what to do."

"Me too." I took a bite of rice and chewed, hoping that would cue Chiyo-chan into the fact that I didn't feel like talking more. Not about my hand. While it was nice of her to care, I wasn't about to allow the chance to have her asked what happened to my hand.

The truth—that in trying to pet a cat, I had received a bite—would be a source of hilarity. The other students all believed that I had picked a fight with a mysterious person, and won. They believed I was tough, that I could fistfight, that my face was a reminder to not mess with me.

It had only been a few hours, and already the locks were clicking into place. Already, the rumors had solidified into permanent, everlasting fact, and I could do nothing to fix any of it.

But I could do something to make friends, so I ate my lunch and listened to the conversation. As I did, I reflected on how it was kind of Chiyo-chan to say that she wouldn't want my injury to get any worse.

And it had been nice of Yomi to invite me to sit with her, to talk to me, and to distract Tomo. Lunch had been Chiyo-chan's idea; there had been no need for Yomi to do anything. And yet, she had.

Tomo had greeted me. It wasn't much, but coming from the girl who wavered between insults and jokes as a form of communication, I would take it.

Whenever girls in the past had dared approach me, all they had to say was some variation of a flittering, worthless, forgettable, comment. Those girls always talked to an idol when they spoke to me. They never talked to the person who walked on the ground, never knew the person who fell down on the sidewalk, never understood that they were why I hoped that I would get past long days filled with nothing.

Chiyo-chan and Yomi and Tomo could be different. They had to be different. They had to—

"Yomi," Tomo groaned, shaking me from my thoughts. "Can I have some of your food?"

"No," Yomi snapped as she swallowed the last of her pickled cabbage. "It's gone, anyway."

"I'm still hungry, though." Tomo turned her pleading gaze towards me. "Sakaki-san, could I have a bite of your food? Please? Just a small bit?"

"U-um," I stammered, already feeling the blush rise on my face. "I—I've already eaten most of my lunch…"

"She doesn't want to share, either!" Yomi exclaimed, casting me an apologetic glance. "Go get some bread, or something!"

Tomo sighed, resting her head on the desk. "Good grief, refused food by my own friends," she complained, her voice muffled. "That goes for you, too, Chiyo-chan. When I'm dying of starvation, I'll tell you three not to come to my funeral."

 _She called me her friend._

A warm sense of wonder filled me. It was as if every sad thought about loneliness, every gray-tinged emotion about adoration, had evaporated. It was gone, gone for the moment, and in its place was a euphoric sensation, born in my chest and growing into a feeling of such joy that I wondered if I might just implode.

I blinked, startled, as I noticed Chiyo-chan gazing at me.

"Do you feel all right, Sakaki-san?" she asked, concerned. "You look a little off."

"Oh." I blinked again, and then again, and then once more. "I'm fine."

I hoped none of them saw that I was trying to hold back tears.

* * *

The school day was coming to a close when Kaorin approached my desk. It was nice to see her again. I hoped that she might say how much fun she had had at the arcade—or no, she might tell me if she had named her plush cat yet—

"Hi, Sakaki-san!" Kaorin stood where Chiyo-chan had been earlier. Her face was light red, the color of light from scarlet glass spilling across the sidewalk.

 _Why is she blushing now?_ I wondered, and the old annoyance flared up in me. Tomo had called me her friend, and Yomi and Chiyo-chan both seemed as friendly toward me. I would have thought that something would have changed. Something would have moved aside, and I would find that people had stopped acting as though I would break their necks with one silent glare.

Blushing was never a good sign—it showed that the person was hesitant, and thrilled, about being with me. It showed that they believed I was cool, and tough, and scary.

I was none of those, but Kaorin wouldn't know that. She saw what she saw, and heard what she heard, and it was foolish to think anything I could do would change her perceptions.

"Hi," I murmured to Kaorin, turning my head in her direction, comforted by the fact that my hair hid part of my face.

Yet, perhaps there was a chance that Kaorin no longer believed I was who everyone else made me out to be. She had wanted me to be happy two days ago. That couldn't have gone away.

"I wanted to thank you again for helping me at the arcade on Saturday," Kaorin said, her expression shifting from nervousness to happiness. A lot of happiness, and appreciation.

"You're welcome," I said.

"It was fun," Kaorin said. "And I named the plush cat Chobi."

Would I surprise her if I showed enthusiasm? "That's—"

"It's so _cool_ that you would help me like that, Sakaki-san," Kaorin interrupted me, eyes lighting up. "Especially when you probably don't like plush cats and stuff like that yourself."

I swallowed, feeling the heavy weight of alienation fall onto my shoulders, sink through my skin, and enter my heart once again. _Crap._

"Thank you," I murmured. Tears were threatening a jailbreak from the prison of my eyes; I had to look away.

 _I am_ not _going to cry in front of Kaorin—not when I'm in school. It wouldn't be cool, and I have to act cool, don't I?_

"Have you joined any clubs yet?"

I turned my head back at the sound of Kaorin's voice. She hadn't left.

Was she making small talk? Was she trying to get to know me?

Did I even care?

 _I'm not brave enough—I'm too shy—to work on changing how people think of me. She's never going to know the person she admires so much._

"No."

"Oh! Do you know about the Astronomy Club?"

"The Astronomy Club?" I repeated. The world around me seemed dull, toned down, and all I wanted was to go home.

"It's really fun," Kaorin insisted. "I—I'm part of it." Her blush deepened slightly. "We use telescopes to look at the stars, and look at maps of the universe and the solar system, and we're going to go on a trip to the planetarium soon."

"I—I've never been in a club," I said.

"It's fun," Kaorin said. "It's not like class." She hesitated, then asked, "Would you—um, would you—?"

"Would I?" I asked, tilting my head so that I was gazing straight into her eyes. Light from the window illuminated her face, but I couldn't tell what her her expression was.

A moment passed—a lull in the conversation, the feeling of paper ripping.

"Oh!" Kaorin's eyes flared with a sudden realization. "I mean, I should have known you wouldn't be into silly little clubs like that anyway. It's nothing, really. I've got to go!"

She scurried away, her face folding into apologetic guilt.

I stared once more at the surface of my desk. It was smooth and clean; there wasn't any blemishes on it. It wasn't hampered by patches of dirt, or dust, or the darkness of an empty room, late at night, when all one could think of was how strange people could be, how sorrowful they could make you feel.

If only she had invited me to join.

 _I don't know what to do anymore. I feel so alone. I am alone. Lunch was only for today—who knows if it'll happen again. And now Kaorin—Kaorin—_

 _I shouldn't have taken that chance. I was wrong. She never really understood me at all. She didn't know what would make me happy._

 _I hate this. I hate this, and I'll never be able to change it._

 _Never._


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

I needed to do something, I realized as I ran down the sidewalk that afternoon. After I had finished helping clean the classroom, I had left school as soon as I could. I didn't want to stay there another second.

I had to do something, anything, to get my mind off the fact that I was sick of how people were treating me. How Kaorin was treating me, how the other students were treating me. Calling me cool, calling me dangerous.

And then they walked away, their damage done, and failed to care about me. If they thought of me, it was only to consider how I thought of them.

I thought of them as an ever-rotating mass of faceless people who farmed rumors about me to reap a greater influence at school. They were a suffocating swarm that made me stumble into places I never would have entered on my own, made me act as though every lie they spoke was the truth.

That was what I thought of, when I thought of them at all, when I wanted to examine the skeleton of the body that made up my street fights and my mystery and my popularity.

I kept running down the sidewalk, past the walls and front doors of houses, my briefcase banging against my side. The breeze in my face and the ache deepening on my thigh wasn't bothersome. I could live with it. I was living though something more painful, anyway.

I came to a stop beside my house, dropping my briefcase beside me. As I leaned back against the wall facing the front door, my chest felt as if it was smoldering. I had forgotten how hard long distance running was, how much it hurt when I couldn't get my breath back for a minute or two, how strenuous it could be to endure.

I stepped away from the wall after a minute or two, wiping my forehead. Sweat caused the back of my hand to feel damp and disgusting; I drew my hand against my shirt, hoping that no one would notice the stain.

I picked up my briefcase from where it had fallen, and then walked the few last few steps, down the path and up to the door.

I must have opened the door and stepped inside, must have taken off my shoes in exchange for slippers, must have walked up the stairs, but what I remembered next was slamming the door of my bedroom behind me, still panting from my run.

The sunlight from my windows shone on peaceful objects. Everything was quiet, still, but I didn't understand how that could be, when I felt unable to turn my thoughts off, unable to ignore any problem I had.

I was so tired of how others saw me as a cool person.

And because of all of them perceived me to be cool, I knew that it couldn't be right, that Yomi or Tomo or Chiyo-chan couldn't want to spend time with me.

It didn't make sense. None of it made sense.

They all said I was the delinquent with the face of stone and predisposition for picking fights, that I was the athlete who outran everyone, who swam like a seal, who never missed a volleyball or a basketball or a baseball. I was the girl who everyone admired, because they all thought they had looked into my eyes and deduced exactly what I was made up of.

They admired what was their own creation. They celebrated their talent for understanding who I was, when what they understood was so far from the truth I would have loved to laugh at it all, except for the fact that I had lost the capability to do so long ago.

So why had Yomi and Tomo and Chiyo-chan chosen me, talked to me, invited me to eat lunch with them, when everyone around them had not?

Was it because they hadn't known me for as long? Would they truly be after admiration from their peers?

A friendship with them wouldn't work out. It couldn't possibly work out. It was hopeless, and ridiculous, and I should give it up before I got hurt. Being alone was better than rejection.

Except I couldn't stand being alone anymore. No one knows what it's like to be truly lonely until all they have are themselves, and I had only myself for what felt like years.

I was going to cry. I knew I was going to cry. The lump in my throat was growing, massless and yet solidly there.

I needed to do anything.

Kneeling on the floor, I pulled out the cardboard box from under my nightstand with a jerk. Everything still felt worn out, weary, hollow, and I wanted a cat to hold.

After opening the box, I scooped up the plush cat I had won on the day I had met Kaorin at the arcade.

Kaorin.

What was the matter with her, spending time with me and thanking me for getting her a plushie and describing a club that I would have loved to join? And then she dismissed me as someone who wouldn't want to be part of a club like that at all.

I had thought she might have understood something about how I loved cats that day at the arcade, but she still saw me as some popular, cool, edgy girl.

No wonder she had mentioned her club to me. She was exactly like all those other teenage girls who wanted to look good among peers by showing off an acquaintance admired by the entire school.

I squeezed the plushie to my chest. The anger and pain and disappointment and fear swarmed up from my stomach, gained momentum in the lump in my throat, and then burst out in tears that crawled down my face.

I got to my feet, wobbly, like a pebble might hit the side of my head and I would fall down, never to get up again. I hugged the plushie tighter as I took a few faltering steps over to my bed.

I sat down on the blanket, feeling the sides of the bed rise up for a moment next to me. The stuffed cat was with me, but a thought came anyway, a thought that if I had a real cat, it would sit beside me on the bed, and lick my face, and purr.

The tears wouldn't stop spilling out of my eyes and running down my face, drop after drop after drop. I was allowing them to break free, to fall, and it felt so _weak_.

In the end, that's what I was.

Weak.

I couldn't stop thinking about the cat biting my hand this morning, how dirty, how shameful, it was to feel as though I had failed a task that everyone else could pass. I couldn't stop thinking about Kaorin's actions. I couldn't stop thinking of how Chiyo-chan and Yomi and Tomo might just give up on me. I couldn't stop thinking about them, even though I had tried to not think about it, tried to tell myself that crying wouldn't help, wouldn't change anything.

My fears ran laps around my head, gathering momentum in their race to make me feel miserable.

I barely knew Chiyo-chan and Yomi and Tomo—they might leave me. They would leave me without getting to know me.

What a concept, leaving a person. You don't know how much it might hurt them; you only know how much you want to get away from them, how tired you are of being with them, of continuing a friendship based on pity—

The three of them would go back to thinking I was scary. They would forget every good moment they had spent with me; they would drill a tunnel to a place deep in their hearts, and they would blockade that tunnel with thoughts of how those moments had to have all been a lie.

What if I hurt them? I could hurt them easily, everyone said I was so great at running, it wouldn't be hard to knock them over accidentally and have them get a concussion and die from bleeding in the brain.

I shut my eyes, hugged the stuffed cat, and sniffed. I wiped away tears.

That was silly. Of course I wouldn't hurt them. I wasn't violent.

I knew I would feel better by the day after tomorrow, or at least I would feel not quite so sad, but at the moment, it seemed as though the heaviness that tugged at some vital part inside of me was there to stay.

* * *

Eating lunch with Tomo, Yomi and Chiyo-chan was not a one-time occurrence; I found myself agreeing to join the three of them the next day, at Yomi's request.

Her smile softened her face when I said yes, allowing her sternness to slip away. I smiled back, and it was almost as if my fears yesterday had only been from a nightmare.

Almost, except for the fact that, for a moment that morning, I felt like I was going to cry again. I was staring out the window, my mind languid, and a whisper of a thought entered, one that said, _This is foolish. They don't really want you._

But I ignored it. I had to ignore it, just like I had to ignore Kaorin whenever I saw her out of the corner of my eye. She didn't approach me that Tuesday; I doubted that she had the nerve.

It felt unnatural at first, this repeated sitting with three other girls and providing the role of another member in their conversation. It was unnatural because they didn't expect me to talk about fashion or athletics or how many people I had beat up with my bare hands.

No, as Tuesday's lunch showed, they provided a commentary on the food provided by the school; a testimony to Yomi and Tomo's friendship; and how the structure of everything must be turning to dust.

That day, we ate in the cafeteria. It was crowded, filled with the overlapping sounds of students talking to one another. It could have been overwhelming; it should have made me want to run directly up to the roof and hide out there.

But I stayed in my seat, beside Chiyo-chan and diagonally across from Yomi, and I felt, if not contentment, then something akin to tolerance.

This was worlds away, universes away, from the first day of sitting alone, and of the overwhelming feelings of being afraid and angry yesterday.

I could handle the sounds of talking all around me. I could handle the stares and nudges from students as I walked through the doors with Yomi, stood in the lunch line next to her, and ordered food. I could handle Tomo's incapability to be silent. Because if I didn't handle it, then I would have nothing.

"The bread is so stale," Tomo complained, sitting at the end of our table. "It's like rocks."

"Or Lupin," Yomi said from Tomo's left. I felt a smile flicker across my face, while Chiyo-chan looked like she wasn't sure if she should applaud Yomi's timing or not.

"Don't." Tomo looked genuinely annoyed. "No criticisms about Lupin. No thoughts on Lupin. No nothing. Just don't talk."

Yomi adjusted the bridge of her glasses with a finger. "You can go buy some more bread, you know. Or don't eat the bread."

Tomo sighed, flopping her arms down on the table and then set her head down too, like autumn leaves falling to asphalt. "Going to buy more bread defeats the purpose," she declared in a muffled, fuzzy-sounding sort of way. "If I know the bread I have is stale, and I bought it today, then it just seems stupid to go buy more bread."

Yomi rolled her eyes. "Geez, Tomo. I just said you don't have to eat the bread. Why are you complaining about the bread, anyway?"

Tomo rolled her head onto her right arm, and squinted up at Yomi in disbelief. "Because I'm bored. Why else would I complain?"

"You're never bored," Yomi said. "You're always…so, well, Tomo."

"And you're never going to stop worrying about weight, because you're always so Yomi," Tomo muttered.

Yomi almost stabbed her food with her chopsticks. Her face was a mixture of shame and anger and disappointment, although she masked that with annoyance. " _Don't_. You're miserable. I get that. But don't take it out on me."

Tomo raised her head up off her arm, embarrassed. "I just don't want to eat the bread."

"And by that you mean…?" Yomi asked, her anger starting to lessen into more of a mellow concern and confusion.

"I want to sleep," Tomo said. "I need to sleep. I spent all of last night doing homework."

"Because…?"

"I was compelled by an mysterious force greater than myself to get a good grade for once."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm serious!" Tomo said as she sat up straighter in her seat. "Something told me to start solving those pile of math problems our demonic teacher assigned!"

"You mean, your mom told you too," Yomi said, with a pleased smirk.

"No, Yomi," Tomo said, picking up her her piece of bread, and tossing it back and forth in her hands. "It wasn't my mom."

"Well, whatever," Yomi said. "As long as that means you don't copy off of me anymore."

Tomo dropped her bread on the table.

"Don't be more of an idiot than you can help, Yomi," she said as her smile climbed out of its grave, shook off the dirt, and came back to life. "I'm never going to stop that."

"You just said you managed to get your homework done on your own," Yomi said pointedly as she picked up some vegetables from her curry with her chopsticks.

"That took me all night to do—crap, get that curry away from me!" Tomo shrank backwards in her seat. "It's gonna spill everywhere!"

Yomi rolled her eyes. "You always say that, and it never happens." She ate the vegetables.

"But isn't there the possibility of it happening?" Chiyo-chan piped up in confusion. "I guess, since it's never happened before, it wouldn't be likely to happen now, but if a random event happened to cause it to spill…" She put down her chopsticks and frowned.

"That's true," Yomi said, picking up another bite of curry. "A random event could cause damage. But, it's probably not likely."

I noticed that Chiyo-chan's lunch tray looked as though she hadn't eaten much, but then I remembered how she had said that the lunch lady had given her extra.

Chiyo-chan glanced over at me, and for a moment I thought she was shy, timid, an afraid little girl cowering before some frightening being.

 _She is afraid,_ I realized, _even after inviting me to have lunch with her yesterday. And I'm the scary older girl who punches people—no wonder she's so intimidated._

"Do…" Chiyo-chan said, her voice trembling a little. She swallowed. "Um, do you like the food they served today?"

I felt dizzy, muzzy, like I needed to lie down, like I needed to get out of this large, echoing room filled with people who were all staring at me as I tried to find an answer to Chiyo-chan's question—

"Yes," I said. "I do."

I doubted for a moment that Chiyo-chan could hear me, but then I saw her nod, relax even, and I knew it was all right.

I thought I might ask a question of my own, if the stares would stop, if the whispering would stop, if I could collect my thoughts and open my mouth and push past it all—

Tomo whacked her hand into the side of Yomi's bowl of curry, making it clatter against the tray. The bowl wobbled, some curry slipping down the brim of the bowl, but it didn't explode into a tsunami of curry.

"Knock it off," Yomi ordered her, reaching a hand around the bowl and pulling it closer.

"I'd rather not," Tomo said, grinning, as she snuck her hand towards Yomi's bowl.

Yomi flinched backwards in her seat. Nothing might have happened, except for the fact that her hand was still wrapped around the bowl, and that her hand had suddenly moved too.

It was not a tsunami of curry that swept over the sides of the bowl, landed on the table, and dripped onto a shocked Yomi. It was more like a tsunami's larger cousin.

"Wha—what the—why—Tomo!" was all she could say as Tomo mildly drew her hand away, picked up her piece of bread, and began to laugh.

"I felt like it," Tomo said in between bursts of laughter. "Your face—" She dissolved into giggles.

"You're not going to apologize, are you?" Yomi sighed, as she took the napkins Chiyo-chan and I offered her, and started to clean the curry sauce staining her skirt.

"No," Tomo said, and triumphantly took a bite of bread. She spit it out, coughing. "It's like rocks," she rasped. "Ancient rocks. We should sue."

"It's never going to end, is it?" Yomi asked me, a resigned expression on her face as she tossed the curry-sodden napkins onto the table. They landed with a wet, sticky, _plop_.

"No, I doubt it," I said after a moment. She had probably meant Tomo's antics, which were annoying, to be sure, but I could tell Yomi had grown used to them.

"Well," Yomi said to me, "at least I have Chiyo-chan and you to help me make sure she doesn't get too crazy."

"I'll try my best, Yomi-san!" Chiyo-chan chirped.

"So will I," I agreed, a comforted, content feeling settling itself around my heart. _Yomi says she has me to help her…that must mean that she likes me._

Tuesday's lunch seemed to signify that Tomo and Yomi and Chiyo-chan were more than all the other girls who had tried to converse with me about topics I wasn't interested in.

No, these three girls' brains and hearts directed them to joke around and make deadpan retorts and insert questions about logic into the conversation. And I was finding that whenever the rare moment came when I gathered up my courage into my throat, and delivered it in the form of words, no one looked quizzical; they all seemed pleased that I was responsive to them.

Yet this was where the structure of everything turning to dust came into play, because it felt as though the order of the world had been thrown off balance, as if I had been thrown off balance. Except, perhaps, I thought, being thrown off balance was what I had needed all along—a shove forward towards something that might just lead to happiness.

Still, the sensation of strangeness lingered in the spaces between bento boxes and lunch trays, and in the pauses of our conversations. I was worried that the sensation might always stay with me, like a silk scarf around my throat that was tied a little too tight, and that it would eventually lead to disaster.

And so, I waited for meteors, encased in silvery poisonous gases and bright blue flames, to tumble down from the sky; for volcanos to rumble and spill their liquid death onto surrounding lands; for Tomo, Yomi, and Chiyo-chan to stop acting friendly to me. But none of that happened.

Although, there was an unexpected moment on Wednesday, physical day, when our class was being weighed by the school nurse, and Tomo made a comment about my figure.

Specifically, "I've got a while to go before I catch up to Sakaki-san! Eyes on the prize!" flew out of her mouth after I had walked out of the nurse's office.

 _She's talking about the size of my chest!_

I wasn't sure if I was feeling rage or embarrassment as I hurried off down the hall. My face felt warm, burning, and it was as though I saw red for a moment.

I could hear the low voices of boys mumbling behind me, talking about my figure, how they had known I was "stacked", how they had seen my larger-than-average chest before and had commented on it.

There were also the sounds of what sounded like two girls yelling at Tomo, but I drowned that out as I threw up walls around myself, trying to process it all.

 _What...where did that...I thought that she wouldn't..._

 _Why would Tomo-chan do something like that to me?_

It was coming back to me, all of it was coming back to me—the doubts that the three of them would stay with me, would hold onto the possibility of a friendship as much as I was.

 _It can't work out. It's impossible, it's foolish, it's—_

"Hey, Sakaki-san!"

Tomo had followed me, sounding as cheerful as always.

I turned around to stare at her, taking in her grin and her pleased eyes and her relaxed posture. I could feel myself sharpening, my face hardening, my emotions bubbling inside, saying, _That hurt._

I think she must have gotten it, because something behind the ever-present energy in her eyes seemed to flicker.

I gave her a nod, telling to speak; I didn't feel like doing so myself.

Tomo's grin flip flopped to a frown, then back to a smile. "Do you want to come back? Yomi and Kaorin already yelled at me, and I don't want either of them to tear their throats to shreds even more. Still, at least if Yomi gets mad again, she could use the exercise chasing me around."

 _Kaorin. Kaorin yelled at Tomo?_

 _It doesn't matter. Kaorin doesn't matter. She doesn't care about me._

Tomo's sentence drifted off into a moment of two or silence, and then I shook my head a little, still staring straight at her. She didn't understand; she was all jokes and drama and speaking words without a care in the world.

Tomo held up her hands, as if to protect herself. "Just don't beat me up after school, okay?"

I nodded agreement, and she lowered her hands.

For a minuscule interval of time, Tomo hesitated. I would always remember what she said next, because I never really saw her hesitate again, not once.

"I tease Yomi, too, you know," she said.

Tomo didn't sound as if she was apologizing. She sounded as if she wanted me to understand something, some idea she herself did not completely understand, but nevertheless wanted me to know anyway. If no one knew, then it would be as though it had no presence in the world, in Tomo's actions towards others, at all.

I understood what she meant when she said that she teased Yomi, understood with a rush what she meant when she had teased me, understood that the hope of someone else holding on was not quite as idiotic as I had thought.

And so I gave Tomo what felt like the tiniest of smiles, and walked back down the hallway next to her, feeling as though I would be able to walk beside her for much longer than I had ever expected.

* * *

I examined myself in the bathroom mirror that Wednesday night before bed. My face had not smoothed, and my eyes had not lost their hardened appearance.

I held a tape measurer to my head, squinted into the mirror at the backwards numbers above my head, and frowned. I hadn't grown any shorter. The nurse had said today that I had even grown a few inches, but I had wanted to check for myself, to see if she had been wrong.

What had changed, if not my body? What could have altered the minds of three people so that they were friendly towards me?

I set the tape measurer down on the counter, and tried to stop frowning, just for a moment. I was tired of frowning.

It was nice to spend time with them, I thought, even if I was worried. Because now I didn't only have myself to be with, to eat lunch with, to walk around school with. Despite Tomo's teasing and Yomi's occasional aggressiveness and Chiyo-chan's lingering fright, they could be friends in the making, just possibly.

I had people to look for, to look out for. That was what mattered, not why they were the ones that I did so for.

Perhaps I would always be uncertain about my friendship with them. But there was a range to uncertainty. One could be nearly convinced that there was nothing to be uncertain about, and yet still have doubts that tugged at their heartstrings.

If I was going to be uncertain about becoming friends with Chiyo-chan, Yomi, and Tomo, I wanted to have as little doubts as possible.

As I stood in front of my reflection that Wednesday night, feeling as though there might just be some good to come out of all of this, I resolved to forget about Monday, to put those emotions aside for awhile. It was in the past, it was over with.

I could move on. Today in the hallway with Tomo had shown how it could be easy that could be.

I had to move on from all of that sadness before, because there was tomorrow to look forward to.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Oronamin Shī Dorinku, or Oronamin C Drink, is a carbonated health drink containing vitamin C. "Of course!" was an original line from former commercials. The Oronamin shake is Oronamin C mixed with a raw egg.**

* * *

Chapter Six

The student cowered before me, head directed at the ground, arms held out in front of him as if ineffectively holding back a moving wall of stone.

"I—I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you! I was trying to put on my shoe, and I stumbled, and it was an accident!" His voice was shaking; he was afraid of me.

I stared at him, uncertain as to what I should do. My mind was like a blank piece of paper with no kanji written on it; there were no helpful scribbles to guide me.

As the student had said, he had fallen into me while trying to tug on the heel of one of his inside shoes. It had been a little annoying, to have someone thump against you—someone you recognized only because they had the locker to the left of yours—but I wasn't angry.

It wasn't a crime; it was purely accidental. It was a mistake made on a Thursday morning, when we were still waking up, blinking our eyes and wishing that it had somehow become Friday afternoon sooner than we expected. Yet, the student was treating it like it was an offense to stumble into me, an offense to make a mistake that hurt me, if even fractionally.

Standing in front of him, I felt as though I hadn't slept at all the previous night, yet I could clearly remember falling asleep with a smile at the thought of what Thursday might bring; I hadn't thought of this.

The student raised his head slightly, hair in his wide eyes, his mouth opening as if to blurt out more excuses that he would say the wrong person to be intimidated by.

"I—I understand," I murmured, stepping forward, holding my briefcase closer to me. _Just get away from me, stop staring at me, stop staring…_

The student backed away, lowering his arms, then turned around and walked at a brisk pace, towards his classroom.

I made myself move forward, made myself put a foot in front of the other again and again and again. No whispers were burrowing into my ears; perhaps everyone remembered that their admiration was for a girl who had the potential to beat them up.

 _He thought he was going to get punched._

I kept walking down the hallways, past blocks of light on the floor, past toes of shoes that I caught out of the corners of my eyes.

 _He thought I was going to hurt him, that my hurting him would be the punishment for a crime._

 _Why? Why would anyone treat making a mistake like breaking a law?_

I was almost at Class 1-3; I could hear people talking around me, but I didn't catch my name.

 _Are others that afraid of me, that they believe I have that much power over them?_

The thought made me feel sick, made my stomach start to produce a mass of writhing globs of nerves. I didn't want to be a person who controlled others, didn't want to have others fear her because of a possibility of violence, didn't want to see others cowering before me as if I was some sort of menace.

Except I wasn't a menace in their eyes. Not exactly. Because, after all, I was a girl who won fistfights with street gangs, a girl who had an amazing athletic ability, a girl who was cool. And yet, at the same time, I was also a girl who they feared.

 _He was shaking. He was acting as though I was some sort of bully. Like he was trying to not provoke me._

I pressed a hand against the classroom door to steady myself for a moment. I needed to take a breath; I needed to process this; I needed to think about how I could fix this.

Still, if I felt as though I couldn't dismiss all the rumors about my fighting, couldn't change how people were in awe of me, then it was doubtful if I could change how they were afraid of me. The ball had dropped, and had been rolling along the ground for some time, smashing into hopes, breaking down possibilities, cracking any chances that I might have to slow it down.

I was blinking, fast and hard, swallowing—

My hand jerked to the side as Chiyo-chan slid open the door, and I winced as it smacked the wall.

"Sakaki-san!" she said, as I removed my hand from the wall. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there, I was going out to get more chalk for Yukari-sensei…is, um, is everything all right?"

I rubbed my aching hand, staring down at the small girl, who gazed up at me with smudges of fear and awe painted in her eyes.

Nothing was all right. Not their fear, not Chiyo-chan's clearly illustrated emotions, not a nagging thought that I should undertake some action to fix all of this. Except I couldn't stop their fear, I couldn't erase Chiyo-chan's fear of me, and even if I knew how to fix anything, I doubted that I could summon the resilience to do so.

"Yes," I said to Chiyo-chan, and I swept past her, though the doorway and into the classroom, away from the lie, and feeling as though tomorrow afternoon could not arrive sooner.

* * *

That Thursday, the sky outside the window was a mass of gray clouds, tightly packed, almost dull if not for the fact that I was waiting to hear thunder.

I didn't want to hear the loud crash of unknown forces above me that day, didn't want to hear that loudness, that horrible boom which rang in my ears again and again, no matter how many times I counted to five and told myself the storm was miles away.

Besides that fear, that waiting for a noise that never came, the day was fairly normal. Tomo greeted me with her typical exuberance, Yomi was as friendly to me and as argumentative with Tomo as ever, and Chiyo-chan remained polite, yet still, consistently, in awe.

In awe, in fear—perhaps it didn't make much difference, since the end result was the same.

It was almost strange how the three of them had been a constant presence to me for only a few days, three days and a half, and already I wanted to make sure they never left. But I supposed it made sense, in a way.

One person has no friends for a long time, and when they finally connect with another, they don't want that connection to falter, or become rusty, or break away entirely.

But I wasn't going to act desperate, I resolved. I would let pieces fall into place however they landed, I would let burgeoning friendships float along without any shoving on my part, I would not attempt to rush anything.

I didn't know why I realized I should do this; it must have been a semi-forgotten lesson from when I was younger, a recording that flickered to life to remind me of everything I shouldn't do.

Yet, I wondered if I no one had taught me that, if I had instead picked it up from always keeping one eye on everyone, waiting for one of them to try to approach.

It wasn't a pleasant thought, that I could have obtained some crucial idea from their hands, their speech, their body language, and so I stowed it away in the back of my head, locking the box and tossing the key in a corner as if I didn't care at all.

The day wore on, like a song that repeated itself on a CD player until you were sick of the words. The classes that Thursday felt almost as dull as the sky; I was bored of not being called on to stand up and recite. Taking notes was useful, always useful for homework and tests, but I was tired of not moving my feet, of not scraping my chair back against the floor, of not picking up my book, clearing my throat, and answering a question.

I found myself doodling in the pauses when other students were called on; there was no point in gazing out at the sky to daydream when all I would see a grayness that sapped the life from the trees and the asphalt and the houses.

I drew flower petals and tiny houses; I sketched mountains that rose high into the clouds and dipped down into valleys; I make the sun appear as a round circle beneath my fingers. And I drew cats, dozens of cats. I inked them in below the most important notes in the class—poised to leap from fences, curling up to take a nap, and standing on all fours with their tails in the air, staring at me.

None of my drawings were great; to call them art would be laughable. But I felt stress slink away from my shoulders, felt my feet relax against the soles of my shoes, felt the empty dreariness of the sky and the tenseness of waiting for thunder disappear.

Lunch came; it was in the cafeteria as usual, and I sat with Tomo and Yomi and Chiyo-chan as usual. Although I had become better at talking to the three of them, there were still times when my mouth felt locked, and my dried-up words blew away into dust.

For a moment, when I was entering the classroom behind the three of them, I thought I saw a girl with short hair, hair that had reminded me of a cat in the sun, and I jerked my gaze away.

I couldn't speak to her, so I sat down in my seat and listened to others be called on to speak, feeling disappointment hover in my chest like a bird that would never land.

* * *

"Sakaki-san! Sakaki-san!"

Yomi, reaching over from her desk, was waving a hand near my face. "The day's over. I'm sorry if I startled you," she said as she drew her arm back. "Yukari-sensi was too busy teaching, and making sure Chiyo-chan didn't answer everything for us, to notice you were doodling."

"Good," I said, relieved. "And you didn't." (The last time Yukari-sensi had caught someone doodling, she analyzed the doodle like a top-notch art critic. It was painful to watch—by the end, the doodler was near tears).

"Tomo's been insisting we get some drinks from the vending machines, since they were fixed last week. Do you have some money with you?"

"Yes," I said. _She's including me—this doesn't make sense._ Girls didn't include me to go get snacks with them—they made valiant efforts to talk to me while they ate their snacks, usually about shampoo, or sports, or fancy clothes.

But I pushed the thought away, remembering my decision yesterday. When others included me, it made me feel like I belonged, like I was whole, like pieces of me I had no idea were missing were returned. I might as well savor it while it lasted.

"Good." Yomi smiled. "Did you doodle anything good?"

I shook my head no; although I had become better at talking to the three of them, there were still times when my mouth felt locked, and my dried-up words blew away into dust.

"Maybe it's for the best," Yomi said. "That way, Yukari-sensi won't become Tokyo's newest art critic."

I smiled at that, and Yomi smiled back, before she turned in Chiyo-chan's direction—to ask if the young girl wanted to get drinks too, I assumed.

I glanced down at one of my doodles. It was an animal that could have been a cat, lying next to three figures. The cat seemed like it was trying to shield the three figures, but from what, I didn't know.

I wasn't going to be anyone's bodyguard, or their way to make sure they would stay popular. Perhaps I wanted to make sure the three of them continued to be content with me, and so I would protect them from my rampaging emotions of loneliness.

My eyes filled up for a second, but then I blinked and I was safe.

I folded the paper in half and tucked it into my bag, along with some notes from earlier classes. I would think about the doodle later.

Right now, I was going to get a drink from a vending machine with three girls who liked me, and I was going to enjoy the feeling of them wanting me for as long as I could.

* * *

Chiyo-chan stood in front of the vending machine, gazing in awe at the different drinks in front of her. "Wow," I heard her murmur. "There's so many."

"Please tell me you know how to use a vending machine," Tomo said from next to me. "If a genius doesn't know how to get sugary drinks, there's no hope for the rest of us."

Chiyo-chan tapped out a number on the keypad, and then fed the machine her money. It deposited her drink with a clink, and she picked it up.

"Sugary drinks aren't good for your heath," Chiyo-chan said, glancing back at Tomo, smiling in a triumphant sort of way, and holding up a Rilakkuma milk tea. "Your bloodstream gets so many sugar, it increases—

"They also increase how long I can stay up every night," Tomo retorted.

"But the caffeine will have worn off in a while," Chiyo-chan protested, fully turning around to face Tomo, "so it'd be better to drink it later in the day so you can stay up later."

Tomo rolled her eyes. "Oh, what the heck, you're not some nutritionist. I don't have to listen to you."

"You know," Yomi said thoughtfully, on my other side, "you're always going on about my weight, but it wouldn't hurt you to think about cutting back on the soda—"

Tomo groaned in disbelief. "I'm not the one who needs to worry about that! Don't tell me you're going to get some crappy diet soda?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking," Yomi said, and walked towards the vending machine, with an "Excuse me" to Chiyo-chan. Chiyo-chan moved aside, still frowning at Tomo, while her orange pigtails bobbed as if in confusion.

The vending machine let out a whirr as Yomi inserted her money, and then the clank of a drink falling into the vestibule announced that gravity had done its job.

"I knew it," Tomo said as Yomi knelt down and drew out an Oronamin from the vending machine. "That's not even a soda. It's liquid vitamins."

"Of course it is," Yomi answered, opening the bottle and taking a sip.

Tomo rolled her eyes. "Don't quote that ridiculous commercial at me."

"If it makes you feel better, I could put an egg yolk in it," Yomi said, breaking down into laughter as Tomo stormed over to the vending machine in a huff.

"Disgusting…egg yolks…they just want people to buy a fake milkshake…" I heard Tomo muttered as she slid some money in the vending machine.

"What drink are you doing to get, Sakaki-san?" Chiyo-chan asked me, tilting her head to look up at me.

I had the sudden, intense sensation of feeling like a giant, or like I was standing on a high cliff and Chiyo-chan was at the bottom.

 _Oh, stop it,_ I scolded myself. _You're not that tall._ But a dizzying feeling, like my head was touching the clouds, remained.

"A milk tea," I answered, looking down at her so she felt like I wasn't brushing her off.

Chiyo-chan smiled. "Oh, I love milk tea! This Rilakkuma tea is so cute, with the little face on the side!"

I smiled back. _So she isn't serious all the time. That's good._ "I've always liked the face too." _And she likes cute things—although who wouldn't like Rilakkuma's face?_

"I wouldn't have expected that you'd like Rilakkuma's face," Yomi said, sipping her Oronamin. "But it is rather cute, so I suppose I understand."

Before I could answer—not that I was sure if I could answer; I felt dozens of eyes pricking my skin, staring at me, forbidding me to feel overjoyed that _Yomi understood_ —Tomo turned around with a dented soda and a disgruntled expression.

"This vending machine and its inability to work makes no sense," she said.

"Much like your inability to actually do the homework and not copy off of me," Yomi said, holding her drink in one hand and adjusting her glasses with the other.

Tomo opened her soda and took a sip, shooting an exasperated glance at me before turning her gaze on Yomi.

"Idiot," Tomo said after a minute had passed in tense silence. "Without me, your life would be so boring, you wouldn't get out of bed in the mornings."

"That's not true—" Yomi protested, but Tomo cut her off with a burst of laughter.

"Yomi's an idiot," she said gleefully.

"Sakaki-san," Chiyo-chan whispered to me. I glanced down at her once more, the feeling of others watching me almost gone.

"Yes?"

"There's one Rilakkuma milk tea left." She smiled at me, a smile that I would never have expected to see on her since the day she had timidly asked me for my list of future careers.

"Thanks, Chyio-chan," I murmured back.

I stepped up to the vending machine, edging past Tomo and Yomi, who were still arguing. I inserted some money and pressed the correct numbers for the Rilakkuma. I was grateful towards Chiyo-chan; she understood what it was like, exactly what it was like, to admire the cuteness of a face on the side of a drink.

The feeling of eyes following me came back with a sudden intensity. My every move, every breath, every twitch of my fingers was being watched, examined, considered in the light of who the watcher thought I was.

I swallowed. I tried to seem calm.

I couldn't let that feeling scare me, because as the milk tea fell down, I felt as though I was finally sure that Chiyo-chan—that all three of them, really—were my friends.

I liked to believe, later, that I had sensed that from Yomi asking me to join them, from Tomo's including me, from Chiyo-chan pointing out the Rilakkuma milk tea to me.

It all added up. It meant that I was free to allow the three of them to know that I was as much a friend to them as they were to me. It gave me a way to start taking syllables and words and sentences that danced around in my head and put them out on the stage of conversation.

I picked up the Rilakkuma milk tea, and turned around to face the three of them. Tomo and Yomi were gazing away from each other, while Chiyo-chan watched them and sipped her drink.

"Thank you all," I said, as I opened up my tea and drank.

The three of them glanced over at me then, and their faces softened into expressions which reassured me I had nothing at all to worry about.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

I roused myself early the next morning, making sure to wake up before my alarm clock had even the slightest idea that it should beep. In the dimness of my unlit room, I dressed in a maroon skirt and red sailor fuku, and grabbed my briefcase, filled with homework, notes, and textbooks, from beside my desk. Then I crept downstairs, made a piece of toast, and took my bento box from where I had left it on the counter last night, before slipping my shoes on, unlocking the door, and reaching for the doornob.

A small thrill went up my spine as the early morning coolness brushed my face, and as I took in the silent street that lay before my house. The whole world was out there, waiting, motionless, only just measuring out a mouthful of milky white light in the east.

I walked down the pathway and out on the sidewalk, and took a bite of toast. It was still warm, and chewy; I wondered where my mom had gotten the bread.

I began to make my way down the sidewalk, trying to move slowly to wake up a little. I had made sure to get to bed somewhat early, but fuzziness lingered at the edges of my mind, and I didn't want to trip and skin my knee. Another rumor would end up arising about how I had banged it up fighting robbers, or maybe this time it would be a gang from a rival school, but they would say I had used my knee as some sort of weapon nonetheless.

I took another bite of toast. I wasn't going to think about that stupidity right now, even though I knew that what I had woken up so early to do might very well give the other students chances to ferment even more fantastical situations.

I continued to walk down the sidewalk, turned a corner, and continued down a block; after several more blocks, I would reach the intersections and offices that I would traverse to reach school.

I kept my eyes open for cats as I walked, hoping to spot early risers among the flowerbeds that lay behind walls surrounding neighboring homes, but saw nothing.

 _Maybe it's simply to early for them. Feral cats are more nocturnal than the average pet. They could be getting some sleep right now._

Continuing to walk, despite a sharp disappointment poking its way in, I finished my toast as the mouthful of milk grew to a creamy puddle and then into a splash of butter-tinted light. Pomegranate flowers, gardenias, and azaleas were branching out past the walls, and were starting to bud. I stopped walking, caught an azalea bud in my left hand, and examined it. It was a light pink, the color of a kitten's nose.

Letting go of the plant, I shifted my briefcase from my right hand to my left, and yawned. I still had some leftover money on me; maybe I would buy a canned coffee or tea when I reached school in a few blocks.

I smiled to myself as I remembered the moment yesterday when Chiyo-chan had been protesting against Tomo buying a caffeinated soda in the afternoon, and how Chiyo-chan had also liked the face on the side of the Rilakkuma milk tea.

 _I'm glad she's not some robotic little genius; that would be awful. And I'm glad that all three of them are so nice._

A meow shook me from my thoughts, and I brushed my hand on my skirt, leaving toast crumbs behind; I saw a cat trekking down the sidewalk toward me. Its brown tabby fur was smooth, and its green eyes were alert.

The cat appeared to be friendly—its tail was parallel to the ground, and not lashing back and forth—almost like it wanted to be petted. I was glad that it looked healthy, too; living on the street must be difficult.

I crouched down in front of the cat, trying not to breathe as it came even closer. I set my briefcase down on the sidewalk, placing my palm on the rough tan concrete to steady myself as I reached out my left hand.

The gay cat biting me on Monday had to be a fluke. It had been in a bad mood. Or it was timid around people; its owners could have abandoned it.

But this cat, this brown tabby with green eyes the color of soft moss, would not be a fluke. It didn't seem timid at all, and it didn't look hungry.

This could work out. I could pet a cat in a few seconds. It didn't matter what would happen afterward, what I would do.

I would pet a cat, at long last; it was the only thing in the world that mattered to me right then.

 _Don't be afraid,_ I told myself, even as I felt my hand shake. _You'll be fine._

The tabby gazed up at me, its brown stripes on its face amplifying the color of its nose, its eyes steady on me, unafraid. I was almost touching the top of its head; I was almost there.

I wondered what the fur of a cat would feel like.

And then it bit my hand, a quick lunging forward, a snapping of sharp teeth into my fingers and palm.

 _No, no, no! You can't…can't…_

The pain intensified; the cat's jaws must have been used to snapping rocks in half.

 _Maybe…it's just more like a love bite._

The tabby finally released my hand, let out a hiss, and tore away down the sidewalk

I remained crouching there for a moment or two, my hand bleeding, long cuts burning on my skin.

 _I'll try again tomorrow,_ I resolved as I stood up. I caught myself as I stumbled, my palm flattening against the side of the briefcase as I used it as a place to push off from.

 _I will try to pet a cat tomorrow and the day after and the day after that._

 _I just have to keep trying._

* * *

"I can't believe that she got into _another_ fistfight!"

"It's crazy! It hasn't even been a week since she started walking around with that other bandage."

"She must pick so many fights—with that look in her eyes, who'd cross her on purpose?"

As I passed the other students in the hallway, my newly bandaged hand close at my side, I heard the whispers of conversations around me—about me.

 _Not again,_ I thought, inclining my head forward, rounding my shoulders. _Not more rumors._

I walked between crowds of students; their conversations died down as they noticed my hand, and then, as soon as I went by, I could hear the rumors starting to find new hosts. My head felt heavy; there wasn't time to buy a canned coffee after the nurse had bandaged my hand and get to class on time.

The sun had made it past the horizon, I noticed as I glanced out the one window lining the hallway that wasn't blocked by students. The sky was emptied of clouds, and the earlier yellowness of the sunrise had faded to the light blue of a spring sky.

I was jerked back to alertness as I heard the rumors start to run in new directions ahead of me.

"I heard it was by the train station!"

"Do you think she just got off the train and picked a fight with the first person she saw?"

"No, that wasn't what happened. The person I heard it from said she was walking by the train station, when some complete moron came up to her and insulted her."

"But who would insult Sakaki-san? There's nothing to insult her for. She's not one to take an insult lying down like that."

"Who knows? Like I said, they were a complete idiot. She ended up scratching their face!"

I shuddered as I went by that certain gathering of a few students, who all fell into a silent respectfulness.

 _I should say something. Tell them it's not true._

 _I would never fight anyone. I would never punch, or kick, or scratch._

But I couldn't bring myself to say anything, just like the first day of school, when I couldn't ask Chiyo-chan if she wanted to be friends with me.

 _Stupid. It's all so stupid. I should be able to tell them to stop. I should be able to open my mouth and say something._

I paused, and turned my head to glance back at the students I had passed. I tried to open my lips, to wretch my tongue from the roof of my mouth, to call words together to fight for me.

Whispers started up louder; wary, admiring eyes were studying the way I studied them.

I turned my head back to face forward once more. It was too much, too many eyes to stare into and explain how all of them wrong.

I continued walking down the hallway, kept walking away from all of them, and I hated every step.

Relief went through me as I noticed I was almost in sight of Class 1-3. Finally, finally, I could stop hearing the sound of myself walk away from people making me out to seem cooler by the minute.

When I opened the door to the classroom, I realized that the girl from Osaka still wasn't here. This was evident from Tomo's disappointed complaint of "What yew mean?" to Yukari-sensei.

"Look, Taniko-san," Yukari-sensei said as I entered the classroom. "I only told you about our secret weapon yesterday. Geez, did you think she would show up the minute I finished speaking? She'll be here today; just wait a while."

"I'm not stupid, Yukari-sensei," Tomo shot back. "I know how teleportation works."

Yukari groaned, laying her head flat on her desk. "Just go away," I heard her mumble. "It's too early for this. I need caffeine. And Nyamo to cook me more breakfast."

"Yukari-sensi, it's Friday!" Tomo said. "Don't be so down."

"You're right…" Yukari-sensei agreed, straightening herself. "Tomorrow I can finally have a bit of a break…I should try to get as much joy out of today as I can!" She burst into laughter. "I sound like one of those inspirational guides to fitness that Nyamo reads."

"What yew mean?" I heard Tomo ask in confusion as I reached my desk. Yomi was talking to Chiyo-chan about the math homework from the previous night.

"I thought that the second problem was harder than I expected." Yomi spoke with a lightness to her tone that she seemed to reserve for schoolwork she appreciated. "With the extra multiplication at the end, but the rest of it was fine—oh, hi, Sakaki-san!"

I nodded in her direction, and smiled at Chiyo-chan, who also chimed in with a hello.

 _I can say hello to them now. It's not that hard. I'm capable of opening my mouth._

"Hello," I said.

It was more comfortable to say that one small word to the two of them than it had been before. The air felt different, as though atoms had moved at the speed of light ever since I had thanked the three of them yesterday, and now I could breathe a little easier.

"Did you understand the math homework?" Yomi asked.

"Mostly," I answered, setting my bag on its hook, wincing as the bandage on my hand shifted, as the cat bite reminded me of its presence.

Yukari-sensei stood up from her desk. "Alright, everyone, our new transfer student is here!"

It was about time for class to start, I realized in disappointment; I would have liked to talk more to Yomi and Chiyo-chan.

"I better get back to my desk," Chiyo-chan said to Yomi and me. "See you at lunch!"

"Bye, Chiyo-chan!" Yomi said; I murmured a goodbye as well.

Yomi looked as though she wanted to say something more, but a shout from Tomo across the room made her roll her eyes to me in part apology, part exasperation, before she turned to chastise her friend.

I sat down at my seat, and got out some notes from the day before. Yukari-sensei went over to the door, and opened it for a girl around Tomo's height, with a pretty haircut a bit past her shoulders and a nervous, yet cheerful—and spacey?—expression.

The girl introduced herself as Ayumu Kasuga, and I would have listened more, would have paid better attention to her saying it was nice to meet all of us, except for the fact that my gaze wandered to land on Kaorin.

She was sitting several desks away from me, nearer to the front of the class, so it wasn't as though I could talk to her, even if I wanted to. Which I didn't want to.

I didn't know what to feel when I looked at her. I had gotten lost in thought for a while while doing homework last night, thinking about it all—thinking about how she had hurt me.

There was anger, disappointment, and annoyance from days ago, when she had left me alone, alone to wonder why she asked me for help, mentioned a club that she loved, and then dismissed me as a girl who wouldn't enjoy what she herself enjoyed.

There was sadness. I had given myself too much hope, seen a kind, cheerful girl who wanted to be my friend. I thought reaching out to her, helping her, might change something, might put some luck in my favor. But it hadn't changed a thing.

And then there was something I couldn't name, some emotion that could have been hope or could have been regret, or could have been wanting to reach out again.

But that was idiotic, because if I took a step towards Kaorin, I knew that she would use me. I would be her ticket to popularity.

Except, now with that unnamable feeling, I didn't feel quite so certain anymore.

* * *

That day at lunch at Yomi's desk—for we had all brought our lunch— I didn't talk. I didn't feel like talking. I would have liked to sleep, just rest my head on my bento box and take a nap.

I ate, sure, and tried to not wince too much at using my left hand to eat. The bite from the gray cat still wasn't fully healed; I was worried that those bites would open up again.

I listened, instead, to Tomo and Yomi converse, punctuated with occasional words from Chiyo-chan, and I tried to make myself smile.

"We need to go see what the Osakan girl has for lunch," Tomo said, across from me.

"Ayumu Kasuga," Chiyo-chan said, sitting at the side of Yomi's desk that was to my left.

"Ayu—Amy—Auy—" Tomo threw her hands up in frustration. "She needs a nickname."

On my other side, Yomi rolled her eyes. "Please don't give her one of your stupid nicknames. And we are not going to be poking around at her lunch."

"My nicknames aren't stupid, they're simple," Tomo said, picking up her chopsticks and stuffing a bite of rice into her mouth; her talking was merely a liability to her chewing, and so her next words came out mangled. "They're easy to remember."

"She named her hamster Ham-chan," Yomi said, as if that was the highest definition of idiocy the world had. "And then she named her dog Black."

Chiyo-chan frowned, confusion spelling out on her face in a neat, careful, script. "Why would naming a dog Black be a bad idea?"

"The dog had black fur," Yomi said.

"It's a simple name," Tomo interjected. "You get what you expect. But in Aym—Amm—Auy—Amy—uh, Auyanumu Kagura?"

"Ayumu Kasuga," Chiyo-chan repeated.

"Yeah, her," Tomo said. "Does she really seem like an Osakan to you guys?" She had a point; Ayumu Kasuga was, instead of a loud, talkative, rather crude person, had a dreamy, even-tempered likability surrounding her.

"Well, no," Yomi said. "But that really is all stereotypes."

It was Tomo's turn to roll her eyes. "If she's from Osaka, she should at least act like it. Or have some food from there. And since she doesn't act like it, and she might not have food, we need some sort of reminder that she's from Osaka." Her eyes widened, and then a mixture of surprise and joy brushed away her exasperated look. "Osaka! That's it! I'm a genius!"

Yomi reached out a hand to grab hold of her wrist, but Tomo had already exploded up from her seat and was racing over to Ayumu Kasuga, shouting, "Osaka! Osaka!" as she went.

"Can she really give Kasuga-san that nickname?" Chiyo-chan asked tentatively.

"Yes," Yomi said, getting up from her seat, her gaze dark. "And it will stick. I'll be back in a minute." And she hurried off after Tomo.

"Ham-chan…Black…" Chiyo-chan was frowning once more. She glanced over at me. "Sakaki-san, do you think those are good names for pets?"

"No," I said.

The speed of the conversation had felt like a car roaring past you, as you stood by the side of the road, hugging yourself against the force of the wind. I had heard everything, but it had made me feel dizzy, as though I had been spun around blindfolded multiple times.

Chiyo-chan glanced over at Yomi, Tomo and Kasuga-san—who had said a "What yew mean?" that could only be described as feeble as a newborn animal trying, and failing, to struggle to its feet.

And then I must have closed my eyes.

Both of us were still at Yomi's desk, except Chiyo-chan appeared to have the weight and height of a doll, was standing on the surface of the desk, and was frowning at me like I was some difficult math problem she was attempting to solve.

We must have been the only two in the room. Perhaps everyone had already left for home; the light from the windows was pale, a faint bluish color like a thin vein near the surface of a hand, and the harsh electronic lights had been switched off.

"Yes?" I asked.

The little Chiyo-chan said that I had been quiet at lunch today. For a split second, I thought that her pigtails bobbed in agreement. She asked if everything was alright.

"Um…" I didn't know what to say; I didn't know how I could tell Chiyo-chan what was happening in my head, or if she would understand. "It's really nothing."

Chiyo-chan was silent for a moment, pensive, and then stated that I could ask her for help.

I stared at this miniature of her, who had said that if it was no trouble at all, as if throwing my burdens at her wouldn't cause her to suffocate under a pile of all of my worries and helplessness and fears.

My stomach was a tight, glossy ball of tension. I wanted to hide; I _needed_ to hide. "Thank you?"

She said that even though she might be younger, we were in the same class. She blinked at me from across the desk, her eyes full of worry. "You shouldn't feel weak about asking me for advice, especially you."

"Why me—?" I asked, and then realized the foolishness of the question. The race with Tomo, the strength I showed PE classes, the rumors of fistfights, and the intimidating aura. "Oh. Right."

Chiyo-chan hesitated a moment, and then said if there was nothing wrong, then she was sorry for intruding.

"Don't be sorry," I said quickly. "I do need help with something."

And then a voice spoke from behind me, or maybe it was all around me, permeating the air with its loudness.

"Sakaki-san! Sakaki-san!"

I opened my eyes; I had closed them only for a second, hadn't I? I couldn't have been sleeping for a while.

I felt the smooth plastic of my bento box against my cheek. My head felt heavy, achey, like someone had drilled a hole in it and then filled the hole with rocks. I heard the scrapping of chairs against the floor, and smelled the wood of the desk.

Chiyo-chan was tugging at my shoulder and calling my name. She sounded worried. "You feel asleep, Sakaki-san. Are you okay?"

I raised my head and rubbed my forehead with my left hand, forgetting the cat bite for a moment. "Oh…I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Sakaki-san!" It was Tomo, back from talking to Ayumu, with Yomi next to her; both were standing beside the desk, towering over me. I swallowed; my throat felt scratchy and dry.

"Usually I'm the one that falls asleep." Tomo shook her head. "I'm disappointed in you."

"Oh, lay off, Tomo," Yomi snapped. "She doesn't sleep all the time, unlike you." Her tone softened as she asked, "Are you okay, Sakaki-san?"

"I'm fine," I said, standing up from my chair and picking up my bento box.

Chiyo-chan still looked concerned. "You said that you needed something, when you were asleep…"

"I'm fine," I repeated, nervousness seeping into my stomach at her statement.

I turned my back on the three of them before they could ask more questions, returned my bento box to its proper place in my briefcase, and dragged my chair across the aisle back to my desk.

That dream I had was nothing more than a dream. I didn't see a reason why I should ask Chiyo-chan for help about the situation with Kaorin; I would figure it out on my own.

Even if I couldn't name a certain emotion, I would figure out my problem on my own—and a fear of weakness had nothing, absolutely, nothing, to do with that choice.

* * *

The last hour of class on Friday was PE, and I made sure to change into gym clothes as quickly as possible. Even though the locker room was full, even though there would be more admiring stares directed at me, I didn't want to hear how the rumor about my fistfight was evolving.

 _I just want to go home,_ I thought, standing outside the locker room. I still felt fatigued from my impromptu nap at lunch, the cat bites on my left hand were aching, and thoughts about the situation with Kaorin were persistently stuck in my head.

"Hi, Sakaki-san!"

I recognized her voice, and I stiffened. I didn't want to deal with Kaorin right now; I _couldn't._ I had to—had to think of what to say, what to tell her—

But I glanced down in her direction anyway, saw her standing in front of me, her eyes hopeful and nonthreatening, and I nodded my head in recognition.

Maybe she would explain herself. Maybe I could tell her that I had wanted to join her club, after all.

"Is your hand okay?" she asked. She seemed worried, and I felt once more like she cared about me. Except she couldn't care, not really. How could she care?

I nodded again. Now I felt like I couldn't breathe; like I was a statue, staring in one direction only, and I couldn't move however much I wanted to. I couldn't possibly tell Kaorin anything. I couldn't explain how she hurt me.

Kaorin looked as though she wanted to say something more, ask another question, but then Kurosawa-sensei blew her whistle for PE class to start.

 _I have to think more—I can't face her right now._

I jogged off from the changing rooms, away from Kaorin, over to the section of the racetrack where Kurosawa-sensei and a few other students had already gathered. It felt as though I was running away from a child who constantly clung to me, except that couldn't be right; Kaorin was not a child.

 _I wasn't being rude,_ I reassured myself. _Class was starting. Kaorin just asked me if my hand was okay—we weren't about to start having a conversation._

But that didn't stop guilt from twisting inside me.

"Okay, everyone!" Kurosawa-sensei announced as more students gathered around her. "We're going to start with some stretches first, then practice our running. Wada-san, will you lead us for today?"

"Yes, Kurosawa-sensei!"

As Wada-san led us in stretching our backs and our legs and our arms, I noticed that Kaorin looked as though she was struggling to keep a smile on her face.

 _I did that to her._ The guilt twisted harder—like a knife. Like teeth, sinking all the way through my body. _It's my fault she looks so upset. My running away from her—I never want to run away like that again._

 _I should apologize._

I kept feeling guilty all throughout the remainder of the stretching. My mind felt like it was distorted, the thoughts coming in a million different bursts, all at the same time, words saying the same phrase over and over and over.

 _My fault—running away—I did that—_

The first few pairs of runners went by in a dusty, cloudy, haze, and when Kurosawa-sensei called my name— _and Kaorin's, not that, not that_ —I stepped forward to get the running over with.

It was easy, to step up to the white line and pretend that I was focusing my mind on the actions I would perform to reach the finish line first. I had heard that all the time, from middle school PE teachers—you had to see the action to complete the action well.

But what wasn't easy was seeing was the look on Kaorin's face as I came to stand beside her—disappointed, upset, but still hopeful. Still ridiculously hopeful.

When I heard Kurosawa-sensei blow her whistle for us to start, I hesitated, which made Kaorin hesitate, and we stood like that for a moment—still, motionless, the air tinged with some horrible sense of uncertainty—before I leapt forward, and then the race had begun.

Our race had begun, and I could hear Kaorin running alongside me, her breath steady, her feet thumping on the dry ground. We were two separate entities—focused on the same goal of winning, of overcoming the one we were running beside—our thoughts tied up in how the other had wounded us.

I had wounded Kaorin, after all; I had left her standing alone, not bothering to glance at her when she had so hesitantly stepped towards me.

She had to have realized by now that she had hurt me too—had to have added together my hardened expression, and how I turned my gaze away from her whenever our eyes met, and my inability to speak, and solved that equation to understand that she had done something to hurt me.

And so she offered me a chance to talk, had given me a chance to step towards her in return, and I ran away from her like I didn't care in the slightest, like she was a meaningless speck of dust.

We were running together now, or rather, running apart. I could hear her panting, just behind me. I thought I heard her gasp, or say a word, or sob.

It was a hot afternoon for a spring day, and the sun was beating us with bars of light. I wanted to turn around to face her, wanted to reach out a hand, wanted to speak.

But I ran even more instead. I pushed my feet even deeper against the ground, feeling the empty spaces my heels left in the dirt. I made myself move faster, trying to move away from it all—from her, from the rumors that she believed, from my wanting that wouldn't do any good.

I reached the finish line first.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

It was a sunny day, warm, the air heady with the scents of flowers blooming and grass poking tentatively out of the ground. Cars and bicycles honked as they wooshed by the movie theater, birds called as they soared above streetposts, and I could smell the faint scent of popcorn even from where I stood beside the doors.

Classes had ended that Saturday at noon, as usual, and my feet had taken me from my desk, out of the classroom, outside school, and led me on a path that lasted several blocks before I finally reached the theater. Luckily, my feet had been slow enough to allow me to say goodbye to Chiyo-chan, Yomi, and Tomo before leaving school. The three girls had said goodbye back, as did the new girl, Ayumu Kasuga—or, Osaka, as she was now known and would forever be known. She was spending time with them besides Yomi's desk.

I wasn't jealous of Ayu—Osaka, I told myself. Not of her carefreeness, her day dreaminess, her easygoing smile that said, _Hey, I'm willing to be your friend._ Not even of her spending time with Chiyo-chan, Yomi, and Tomo; I would have thought that I would be jealous if anyone else spent time with them, but Osaka was not threatening in the slightest. She wouldn't shove you out of your space, she would make herself a space and that was okay.

But why had I come to the theater directly after school? I was still in my uniform; I would have liked to change into pants and a t-shirt and a jacket—the one with a collar, the kind that I liked. I would have liked to stop by home for five minutes, to take in the empty house (my father at work, my mother out shopping or at her job or with Ototo) and see the sun slant across the counter for a few minutes before I went back out the door.

I willed my feet to move. I could go downtown, maybe see if there were any new books out about veterinary studies, check on the florist shops, stop for a moment in front of the pet store and think about what it might be like to need to go in there for a cat of my own.

My feet didn't move.

 _I am not going to see that movie,_ I thought, remembering, from somewhere, a notice about the showing of _The Lost Cat_ at the theater I was standing before, at Saturday, 13:00. Five minutes away; enough time to buy a ticket and sit down.

 _I am not going to see that movie. It's for children. So what if it was made by a famous animator?_

 _Still for children, still not going to see it._

I glanced around; there were no girls wearing the distinctive red uniform; no boys wearing a black military uniform.

 _There's going to be people noticing that you're watching it,_ I reminded myself, even as my mind danced with images of well-drawn cats. _They're going to wonder why you're watching it._

 _Not if I sit in the back._

My feet moved forward.

I opened the door, and the scent of freshly made, fluffy, buttery, popcorn hit me smack in the nose.

 _This won't be so bad._

I bought a ticket for a high school student from the friendly woman in the ticket booth, and entered the theater for the showing of _The Lost Cat_. I had made it; I hadn't failed, and excitement fizzled away in my stomach like shaken soda in a can.

I sat in the first seat of the last row, and tried not to notice how the first few rows were filled with girls around Chiyo-chan's age, girls a year or two or three older, but younger girls than myself all the same.

Hopefully none of them had seen me enter. It was pathetic enough to see a movie by myself, but I would feel even more uncomfortable if one of them had seen me sit down in the back.

I shouldn't feel uncomfortable. It wasn't wrong to want to see a movie about a young girl and her search for her cat. It was only that it was as though I was out of place, in space, floating among small specks of light, and that every other girl in the theater was safely on the earth, walking on the firm ground without a care.

The projector whirled and buzzed somewhere far up above my head, light flickered on the movie screen, and music began to play.

"Tama-chan, are you awake?"

The movie began with a young girl, Himari, waking up in her room and calling for her cat.

"Where'd you go?"

She couldn't find Tama-chan at first, but then he appeared beside her bed, and jumped onto her lap.

She reached down to pet him, and then found herself waking up again, to realize that it was a dream, and that Tama-chan was really a stray cat who she sees throughout her day.

Himari looked heartbroken.

That's when I started to cry. It was quiet, not audible against the sound of Himari deciding to find Tama-chan and to take care of him, not audible against the rustling of hands fumbling in popcorn bags.

I cried in the darkness of a movie theater, surrounded by other girls who I knew would wonder why I wasn't out tossing litter on the streets or trading punches with someone who had looked at me the wrong way. I cried for Himari's sadness, that she had woken up from a wonderful dream, and I cried for myself, because I had woken up from similar dreams dozens of times before, and had sat in the early morning light filtering through my windows and wondered why I could only be with cats when asleep.

Throughout the movie—through Himari's day at school, her helping out at the family store, her wandering through her town in search of Tama-chan, all the while wondering if she would find him, when he was missing from all his usual haunts—I cried.

Crying didn't feel very weak this time, even though I was in public. It was as though I was releasing balloons from my hand, watching them float away on the breeze, up into the blue spring sky. I felt cleansed, purified, like a plan would spring to mind, ready and waiting when I needed it.

The movie ended with Himari finding Tama-chan in a park she used to go to when she was younger. She held him up to her face as she said, "I'll keep you safe."

I brushed the sides of my face with a hand, wiping away tears that were still there, wiping away any signs that I had been so upset. My face felt normal, not too swollen or puffy.

I left the theater first, passing through the lobby. I could see through the glass in the doors that it was mid-afternoon. I didn't have to be home until around nine, and I still had some money on me. I could look around the shopping center, take myself out for a while.

I noticed the arcade on my way out the door, which made me think of Kaorin.

She had looked so sad yesterday afternoon, as though her melting hopes had evaporated in full. She couldn't have intended to hurt me by asking me to join her club—for she had tried to ask me to join her club, but had given up once surrounded by doubt and second guessing.

She wouldn't have wanted to push me away, not if it would have made her so sad, and she would not have known that asking me to be her ladder to the top of the popularity tree at school would fail. She would have thought I would accept her offer of joining a club, or politely decline, not say that I wouldn't have enough time, that I would stop talking to her after that, that I wouldn't propel her to fame.

And so what, really, if she thought I was cool. The entire school thought I was cool, Kaorin was one more person. It didn't matter if she blushed whenever she spoke to me or liked stuffed cats or had once seemed to care about me, because after all, she thought I was cool, tough, had a spine of icicles, believed my hands were bandaged from all the fights I won without breaking a sweat.

The realizations were created haphazardly, flitting through my mind in fragments, until I had collected every one and could understood, or thought I understood, what had happened.

I wouldn't remember much of _The Lost Cat_ in months to come; I would remember the start of the movie, my crying, my obvious separation from the other girls, and that moment at the end when Himari finally found Tama-chan. And I would remember standing outside the theater after the movie ended, wrapping my arms around myself, staring out into the street and realizing that Kaorin had hurt me, would have wanted to use me, but could have not intentionally wished to hurt me, not if it meant my silence.

But it had meant my silence. And so she must have realized her mistake. And that might mean she was willing to apologize, and then we could start over from where we had left off—smiling over cat plushies, spending time together, talking as though it was the easiest activity in the world to do.

* * *

Later, in the evening, I found myself standing in front of the crane game, gazing at the stuffed cats tumbled together behind the glass. The plushies all looked the same from the last time I had visited; no tired arcade employee had tossed in new plushies at the end of a shift. I didn't know what I was doing there.

It was late, and I would have to get home soon. I had spent my time in a couple of bookstores, examining the shelves that contained books on cats and biology, and had bought a snack at a café. My hair felt greasy; my entire body was weary of being bathed in neon light.

While walking past industrial buildings to get from one bookstore to another, I had realized that with hair and a face that must have signaled _delinquent, rule-breaker, omen of downfall_ to other pedestrians, it was clear why no one met my eyes, why even though I was walking on crowded sidewalks no one brushed against me, why I felt lonely. I had been alone all that afternoon, in the movie theater and while perusing bookshelves for the best selling literature, and while sitting at a table across from an empty chair, nibbling on a pastry. Yet the loneliest time, the time when I had felt like a ghost, had been on a sidewalk surrounded by dozens of people, none of whom I knew—none of whom would wish to speak to me.

If I truly was a delinquent, if I had punched an idiot in the eye and scratched his face in the train station yesterday like the other students said, I would have a gang, wouldn't I? We would dye fragments of our hair blonde, pink, green, red, purple; we would scuff up our uniforms by shortening the sleeves and discuss the benefits of wearing our skirts long like the _sukeban_ leaders of two decades ago; we would go into tattoo parlors and leave with tigers or dragons or Baku etched on ours wrists and arms and shoulders; we would light cigarettes with a deft, casual finger, flicking away the match a centimeter before the flame touched our skin; we would shoplift for the thrill; we would trade stories of rival gangs acting cowardly, then slink after them in darkened alleyways, and attack with a combination of heavy bats and martial arts skills.

But I wasn't a delinquent—I had told myself that in the middle of the night, the center of hallways, on school trips, every time someone held their gaze away from me in fright—and I reminded myself of that now. That wasn't me, that cold, stern, girl who wanted to get back at society for all it had done to wrong her, and so she attacked anyone who looked at her the wrong way; she made sure she was always in control of her girls; she stole and glared and cursed because she knew she could get away with it, for she was invincible and no authority was ever going to stop her.

 _That's not me, that's not me,_ I thought now, as I stared at myself in the reflection of the crane game glass. My shirt looked grimy, as if done on purpose, and my eyes seemed to hold a callousness towards the world.

 _That's not me; I'm not her. They're making it up, they're making it all up. It's a lie, all of it is a lie._

I blinked, and wiped at my shirt with a hand, and blinked again, and tried to breathe, tried to think of flowers, cats, Yomi, Tomo, Chiyo-chan.

When I looked back up at the glass, I could see myself again, or perhaps I had only imagined it out of exhaustion.

I heard the tapping of shoes behind me, the sound of a timid person trying to attract as little notice as possible. And then the shoes came to a halt near me, and the person inhaled, and their exhale included the words, "Sak—Sakaki-san?"

My face's reflection on the glass was joined by another—Kaorin's face, hopeful and fragile and worried. She was standing next to me, on my right, and of course, this was why I had gone to the bookstores and the café and now the arcade instead of back home after the movie. I had thought she might show up, but as for why I wanted her to show up—was it for her to apologize, or for me?

My shoulders felt heavy with the weight of never having the strength enough to approach others—of running away from them—of running away from Kaorin. There were rocks attached with steel chains to my shoulders—and then I said one word, "Yes?" and that weight lifted, just a little.

Kaorin's face looked pinched for a moment with the concern of not knowing what to say, and then she said, "You were great in that race yesterday."

 _I just ran really fast. It's not a big deal._ "Thanks."

"Is your hand any better?" Kaorin asked, and the hesitation in her voice, the trembling uncertainty that rested on the edge of her words, made me swallow a lump that was rising in the back of my throat.

"Yes."

I didn't want to run away this time. I couldn't run away this time. I had to lift the chains away all in one swoop.

I had to open my mouth and say something, say anything.

"I…" I felt as though the beady eyes of the stuffed cats were watching me as I turned to face Kaorin. "I shouldn't have been so rude yesterday during class…I apologize…"

"Um…" Kaorin was surprised, taken aback, as though she hadn't expected me to consider apologizing, much less apologize at all. Her eyes were fixed on mine, searching for a trap, a smirk, a hint that I was lying. "It's fine, really…"

"I thought that it was rude."

"Sensei blew her whistle for class to start anyway." Kaorin seemed like she was trying to placate me.

"You seemed upset," I said, turning back to glance at the stuffed cats. It didn't matter, her trying to act as though it was not a big deal, because it had affected her, had hurt her, and I needed to fix that. "That's why I apologized."

"Thank you, then."

I gave a slight nod, and gazed at the stuffed cats for a moment longer before turning back to Kaorin. She seemed as though she had something more to say, and while it was not exactly a hope, I wondered if she might speak the words I had been waiting to hear: _Yes, I used you. I thought others seeing you with me would help my status. It was immature, and I would like to apologize._

Her blush rose on her face as I watched her, like paint spilling through well-worn cracks.

"What?" I asked, feeling weary. If she was going to swoon all over me, I didn't want to hear it.

"I would like to apologize too," she said. "I'm sorry for acting so annoying."

"An—annoying?" She was off-script, she was supposed to admit that she had used me, had craved the attention I despised, had wanted to climb over me and float to the surface of the waters of high school.

"Yes, bothering you about my club." Her chin wavered, but she managed to keep her gaze locked onto my own; she wasn't about to run away. "I didn't have any friends in it yet, and you would have been someone there I knew, and I would have…it would have been nice."

She swallowed, pale red now blossoming on her face in embarrassment. "I'm sorry."

I was a statue again; my tongue was frozen, my arms rigid, my feet glued to the ground with cement. The air smelled damp, and of plastic and mustiness and metal.

 _She would have liked to have me in her club because I was someone she knew._

 _She never wanted to use me._

The thought went against everything I knew of teenage girls, was the wrong piece to finish a puzzle I thought I had completed, was sharp and hard and clumsy in its strangeness.

"I—it wasn't bothersome," I choked out, the words unfurling from a leaden mouth. "O-only, I don't have extra time for a club."

"Oh." Kaorin studied my eyes once more, and I noticed that there was confusion in her own gaze. "I thought that it was annoying."

I shook my head. "It wasn't."

We stood in silence for several moments; the sound of children yelling in disappointment as the screen before them flashed GAME OVER was the only noise that pierced the air.

I had been wrong, wrong about Chiyo-chan and Yomi and Tomo, and now wrong about Kaorin.

But I wasn't wrong when I knew what they thought of me. They might not want to use me—they might even want to get to know me—but there would be intimidation, fear, coating their thoughts when they thought of me, because that was what I did. I intimidated people and made them fear me. The four of them were brave, that was all, brave to believe in lies and then say hello to me despite that.

They were braver than me. None of them wouldn't hesitate a moment to stop rumors about them, however innocently those rumors were meant.

I heard a soft sound of appreciation from somewhere in front of me, and blinked away the blurriness in my eyes to see that Kaorin was examining the stuffed animals in the cane game beside me.

She glanced over at me. "I noticed these plushies," she said, another apology creeping into her tone—perhaps she assumed she had disrupted my train of thought. "They're cute."

"Y—yes," I agreed, the words escaping me before I had decided if I should free them. "They are."

Kaorin's face shifted for a second into confusion, disbelief, surprise.

 _Oh no. What did I just do—I ruined everything—stupid, stupid!—_

And then she was smiling once more, and I could feel some minuscule part of me relax.

"It's cool how you like the plushies too!" Kaorin sounded enthusiastic, as enthusiastic as she had when I had agreed to get a stuffed cat for her. She couldn't be faking it; I prayed that she wasn't faking it.

"I—it is?" _That's…cool? Why would she—she thinks I pick fights for the fun of it—_

"It is." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her glance over at me, and so I glanced back. "Really, Sakaki-san, it is."

My shoulders felt lighter, the rocks and chains floating away as I realized I had stayed; I hadn't given into the part of my mind that had told me to run.

There was something in Kaorin's gaze that made the last of my reluctance to forgive her fly away. She looked like she wanted to reassure me, like she wanted me to understand that it was as cool to like a plushie as it was to run quickly.

She didn't want my help in becoming popular. She couldn't have been lying. She was better than that; she had to be better than that.

I gave her a tentative smile; it must have looked so fragile. Because I did, after all, understand what she was trying to say about the stuffed cats, about cuteness. I just never had the strength to show that understanding to others.

I wasn't sure how I managed it, how I did, in the end, have the strength to open my mouth and say, "Thank you, Kaorin," to acknowledge what she was saying.

It was worth it—worth pushing against some looming gray mass of silence, of shyness, of weakness—to see her smile back.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Apologies for the late chapter. Updates are going to be more irregular for a while.**

 **Thanks to everyone who keeps reading, and the review last chapter — it really makes my day.**

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Chapter Nine

It was not, simply, that I was tired of the rumors. It was that the rumors sliced the space in my head into quarters; this made it harder to keep all my thoughts sorted into neat stacks, and so they ended up in a pile on the floor of my brain instead.

If the rumors had been anything else but completely false, then it might not have been so bad. But they were false—it was false that I was escaping street fights with only scratched knuckles, that I had been seen playing basketball with professionals, that the other students better get out of my way, fast, unless they wanted their teeth knocked out and money stolen.

It made my stomach twist, to walk down hallways and see students jump out of my way, or win a game during gym class and notice Kurosawa-sensei give me an approving nod like a rare gift. I deserved none of it, and yet I had been given it anyway.

I tried to hide in my head, tried to stare out the window during class and think about cats or beautiful artwork filled with color, or anything, really. It was the only way I could shelve the rumors away for a while—the only way I could pretend.

When it didn't work—when I found myself focusing on the lesson instead—I tried to accept that.

Not daydreaming meant I had to focus back onto the end of what the teacher was saying. This wasn't hard, about half the time. Their words droned on in the background, the humming of bees in the meadows of my head.

Most of the time, I could locate the sound of the bees. Usually.

Osaka, I found as time went by, completely lost track of the bees' noise, barely knew they existed, and went skipping off in her meadows with nary a care in the world. She only remembered that bees were even a concept when Yukari-sensei smacked a book down on Osaka's desk—or head.

It was good, that there was another daydreamer in the class, another person who knew precisely how to fabricate a land made out of snippets of half-remembered REM cycles. It was nice, the sort of comfortable nice that settled around my shoulders and didn't choke my throat.

It was something to remember, that niceness, when I couldn't daydream myself, when I had to jolt myself back into the English or history or classic literature lesson.

It was something to smile about, when the rumors made me feel as if smiling was an alien concept.

It felt as though the whispered _She has more bangs—maybe covering a cool scar_ and _Did you see her by the vending machine the other day? Maybe she was waiting to take a kid's money_ and _Oh my god, she's walking our way, quick, quick, get out of her way before you get hit_ was slamming into me, and I wasn't—couldn't—get though. I couldn't step around it or go under or over, and I was sick of the way their faces all froze into a terror, an awe, a formula that they kept gulping down like they couldn't get enough. They didn't know the formula was fake, or if they suspected, they didn't care; they needed drama in their lives, some topic to gossip about, and I was the chosen target.

The number of days since my conversation with Kaorin at the arcade were adding up—and then, multiplying into weeks. As their numbers continued to climb, I reminded myself that Osaka was another daydreamer when students whispered stories of bravery around me. I tried to throw myself into taking notes in the attempt to forget there was anything but English grammar or Japan's rule over Korea or wise proverbs, to forget about the fact that a dozen students had tripped over themselves in fright to get out of my way.

And then there were my friends, who were, if not the best, then the most comfortable way to forget about it all.

Friends. My friends.

It had felt like an impossibility—it had been nothing more than a persistent wanting, a wishing for what the other students had, an ache in my chest like a second heart, pumping a craving for any connection into my veins instead of blood. But now that only seemed like a hazy pool of despair that had dried up into a frightful memory.

I tried not to think about those times before, especially on days like today, a day with a blanket of gray wool pulled up tight on the bed of the sky, days when I found myself at my desk instead of in my head. It was about a week or so before midterms, and it was best that I should fully concentrate on taking notes rather than scratching down parts of a lecture; that was what my parents wanted, anyway.

Of course I wanted to do well at school. Of course I did. I wasn't lonely anymore, after all, and I could focus.

And I wanted to focus more, to not lose myself in my head so much, but the sky was so inviting at times. It beckoned to me. It let me imagine cats, and even though that was almost nothing compared to owning a real cat, it provided some comfort.

I didn't want to give up that comfort. I couldn't make myself.

 _There are so many things I can't do,_ I thought as the lesson that Thursday came to an end. _It's all because I'm afraid, isn't it? I'm afraid to stop those rumors, because who knows what will happen, and I'm afraid to give up daydreaming of cats because then I'll be empty. I'll be floating along in life, more than I already was before—_

"Sakaki-san?" Yomi asked from the desk beside mine, and I turned to look at her—there was a bemused expression on her face, as if she had not been quite sure if she should pull me out of my head or not.

I nodded, telling her to go on. I made myself smile, to reassure her.

"It's lunchtime," she said.

 _The cafeteria, again?_

Yomi must have seen some annoyed look in my eyes, for she said, "It'll probably be quieter around Tomo."

She was right, I knew; Tomo tended to take up too much space for herself to allow others to join in. But still, the noise—the people—

My friends, in the cafeteria, eating lunch with me. People wanting to sit down at the same table with me and eat lunch.

That was what mattered—my friends, not my fears.

I kept telling myself that as I walked down the hallway to the cafeteria several minutes later. I had told Yomi to go on ahead without me; I had needed to look over my notes and make sure they were all in order.

I reached the doors, and, feeling like I was curling into myself, as though the doors radiated fiery heat, I touched the handle and felt smooth metal. I twisted it, and then I was inside the cafeteria.

The noise was louder than ever as students complained to one another about midterms. It was overwhelming; the conversations merged into one great mass of sound that echoed off the walls and filled your ears with a consistent background hum.

I made my way to the food line, forcing my feet to shuffle their way across the floor.

As I took a tray, a memory blew to full size in my head.

I had been trying to pet the neighborhood cats for weeks on end now—slowly reaching out my hand when I saw a cat, waiting for them to come up to me to see that I was friendly, offering them pieces of a sweet red paste bun.

Nothing worked; absolutely nothing worked. The cats bit my hand when I reached out to them. They bit my hand when they padded up to me with innocent eyes. They bit my hand, and then grabbed the piece of bread when I dropped it, during the times that I offered them food.

I had even tried to take pictures of the gray cat; Kaorin had brought in pictures of her kittens, and that had seemed like a fantastic idea at first. But kittens couldn't leap away from cameras like adult cats.

But the memory was not precisely of leaping cats. It was of talking to Kaorin, for after I had nearly swooned over the pictures of her kittens—balls of fluff with tiny paws—she had asked me if I had a cat.

I remembered my gut freezing up, my breath catching, my emotionless voice saying no, my parents were allergic. There was no need to drag Kaorin into my turmoil of self-pity, not that she would understand it, coming from me.

But Kaorin had said that was too bad. She had sympathized with me. She could sense that I must have wanted a cat, and she didn't consider it strange.

I kept that memory close to my heart; it was like a lightbulb, glowing against the dusk.

Everything that I was doing worked for other people; I saw with my own eyes that it worked for other people. It just didn't work for me. The cats weren't sensing that inside, I was a girl who wanted to be petite and cute and pet cats. They only saw the girl who was hulking and intimidating and threatening.

And that hurt. I had always thought that animals could understand you on deeper levels than humans could, but it looked as though I had been wrong.

Yet, the thought that Kaorin didn't think me strange for wanting a cat—even if she was not aware of how much I loved anything cute— was enough to keep me going. There had to be a cat out there who could tell that I wasn't scary on the inside. There just had to be.

As I slowly managed to move towards the sneezeguards protecting pans of food, I noticed that the girl in front of me was looking nervous.

 _Why is she—oh, right._ I frowned. _She's probably wondering if I'm going to belt her with my tray and demand some money._

The girl was visibly pale by the time we were standing in front of the lunch ladies. I thought for a moment that her hands might be shaking.

This was ridiculous. The noise of the cafeteria was increasing in volume. The only reason I wasn't bolting for the relative quiet and calm of the classroom was the fact that I had seen Yomi and Chiyo-chan over at our usual table, and I had to sit with them.

The girl motioned for me to pass my tray in first.

"You go," I insisted. If she realized I had manners—that I was polite, that I was more than someone who she thought would attack her—then she might not be so afraid of me.

The girl looked confused, but a "Thank you," slipped out anyway as she handed her tray to a lunch lady.

A bit of my annoyance faded away, replaced by a sudden fear that made me freeze in place.

I had spoken to someone, not at all quietly, and they had spoken back, and there were all of these eyes staring at me, those watchful, constant eyes with their steady gazes and—and I couldn't—I wanted to hide so badly—I had to run away _right now_ —

"Your tray, miss?"

One of the lunch ladies was holding out her hand, her hair tucked away in a hairnet, her eyes serious and tired. She wasn't tracking my every move; she just wanted to get her job done and serve food.

I felt myself relax, my shoulders fall, my hands loosen their grip on the sides of the tray as I handed it over to the lunch lady.

 _That was horrible._

I sighed, then flinched as a laugh sounded above the mess of conversations cooking in the air, talk that was bubbling and sizzling away as though they would never end.

 _I just want to find my friends._

 _I'll feel better when I'm with them._

There was a sense of warmth that came with the word _friends_. It was a sense of belonging, a sense that I meant something to others—a hello in the hallways, a smile in a crowd of faces, a person to talk to.

I wanted to hold onto that sense of belonging. I never wanted to have it leave me.

The lunch lady passed a full tray back to me. I took it—a thank you left my mouth— and then I turned around and moved a few steps away from the line, scanning the cafeteria tables.

I noticed who was staring back with wary expressions and who was gazing with admiration plastered on their face. I noticed how one table of girls was studying me intently, as though I was a book full of information that would alter their lives for the better, a book waiting in a store to be bought by one of them, shiny and new and willing to answer all the questions they had. I noticed Chiyo-chan and Yomi, now joined by Osaka; they were still eating lunch and talking, and my shoulders sagged in relief.

I headed in their direction, and as I neared the table, I realized that Chiyo-chan was wearing red and white checkered ribbons on her pigtails, as she had been prone to doing so over the past few weeks.

I recalled the first time I had seen Chiyo-chan wearing those ribbons. They had accented her cuteness then, and continued to do so now.

I had wondered what I might look like with a ribbon like that in my hair, decorating the bangs above my forehead, framing my face perfectly in a way that I never could get it to look like when I was staring into a mirror some mornings. I couldn't stop myself from also picturing a scrowl on my face, and I thought the image looked as though I was pretending to be someone who I held nothing in common with at all.

I hadn't tried to put a ribbon in my hair the morning of the day afterward; instead, I had put all of the ribbons I owned inside a desk drawer, and had kept it shut since.

"Hi, Sakaki-san," Yomi said, swallowing what looked like part of a croquette filled with cayenne powder. I noticed Osaka, next to her, was eyeing the croquette with deep suspicion, and recalled her hiccups from about a week ago; they had been caused by Yomi's food, or so I had heard.

 _Boiled persimmon stems would at least have been better for Osaka than whacking her on the back._

"Hello," I said, setting down my tray next to Chiyo-chan, who greeted me with a cheerful hello.

"Yomi and Osaka and I were discussing the midterms for next week," she said. "I suppose I feel prepared, but I'd still like to get extra studying done this weekend."

"So do I," I said, picking up my chopsticks and snapping them in half; Osaka looked impressed.

"How'd you do that so well, Sakaki-san?" she asked. "It took me a while to get the proper hang of it."

"I don't want any spirits to be angry at me for not opening chopsticks correctly," I said.

"Oh," Osaka said, nodding in understanding. "I see."

Strangely enough, Osaka didn't seem at all scared by my demeanor, or the wild stories Tomo told her of my athleticism and fist fighting. Although she did seem a little in awe of me—at least, when she wasn't off in a daydream—I was content with that.

Tomo smacked her tray of food down next to Yomi, who didn't even flinch.

"I'm going to fail the English midterm," Tomo moaned as she sat down with a thump. She didn't even attempt to touch her food.

"Did you study?" Yomi asked.

"Study?" Tomo blinked. "Why would I study?"

"Never mind…"

"There's going to be fifty-two problems on this test," Tomo said. " _Fifty-two problems_. Yukari-sensei gets a laugh out of making us suffer."

"We'll be fine," Chiyo-chan said reassuringly, and I nodded my head in agreement. "It's not that—"

" _Fifty-two problems._ "

"Yes," Chiyo-chan said, "but—"

"How the _hell_ ," Tomo said in despair, "am I going to manage _fifty-two problems?_ "

"We just gotta suffer through them," Osaka said.

"But if I fail this test," Tomo said tearfully, "my mom's going to ground me, or kick me out of the house or something."

"Tomo, that's ridiculous." Yomi was sensible as always, I realized with relief. "Your mom isn't going to kick you out of the house."

" _Fifty-two-freaking problems,_ Yomi. If I fail this test, that's it. I'm dead."

"You're not dead!" Chiyo-chan said, sounding even more worried than I felt. "This test can't possibly determine if you fail or not!"

"Yes," I agreed. "You just have to do your best."

"My best can't do anything against fifty-two problems," Tomo shot back, picking up on my quiet words. "I'm going to fail this test, and get kicked out of school, and then I'm going to be living on the streets because I won't want to tell my mom—"

"She would find out anyway," Yomi put in; Tomo ignored her.

"And I'll have to live in a garbage bag or something."

 _She can't be serious,_ I thought. _Is she serious?_

"A garbage bag?" Chyio-chan said in disbelief. "But…you won't be able to live in a garbage bag."

"Would you let me live with you, Chyio-chan?" Tomo asked in desperation, turning to her, her eyes widening pleadingly.

"You idiot," Yomi said, glaring at Tomo. "You're not going to end up living in a garbage bag, and Chyio-chan would never let you live with her."

"Would you help me out then, Yomi, my oldest and most dearest friend?" Tomo asked, glancing her way.

Yomi rolled her eyes. "Don't flatter me. And if you ever ended up living in a garbage bag—which is never going to happen—I would—"

"Let the trashmen throw me in their truck, is that it?" Tomo snapped. "They would throw me in their truck, and I would get crushed to death, and it would be raining like how it does in sad parts in movies—"

Osaka's sobs ground Tomo's monologue to a halt.

"It's so sad," Osaka said between sniffs. "At…at least Chyio-chan's journey to find her pigtails had a purpose…going through the sea and through the land of carrots and seeing the lights…Tomo-chan, why can't your story be less sad? It makes my eyes hurt, I'm crying so much…"

We all stared at her for a few moments.

 _Is Osaka really saying what I think she's saying?…Why would she be so wrapped up in Tomo's story?_

"Osaka-san, when…when did I journey to find my pigtails?" Chyio-chan asked eventually.

"It was all in a dream I had." Osaka sniffed some more, and wiped her eyes with my proffered napkin. "But it doesn't really matter. I mean, Tomo's going to get killed by those trucks…we've got to steal them, or something!"

Yomi sighed, and as she drew her glasses away from her face and set them down on the table, I noticed that her eyes were filled with exhaustion.

Rubbing her forehead, Yomi said, "I can't think of a worse plan."

Tomo whacked her on the back. "Don't be so gloomy!" she said. "We could make this work. We'll just need crowbars or something."

"Tomo-chan," Osaka said, glancing at Yomi, who was hacking, "Yomi didn't have any hiccups. Why're you hitting her now?"

"That wasn't a hit, that was a friendly smack," Tomo said, breaking open her chopsticks at last and shoveling down some rice. "Besides, she needed it."

Yomi put her glasses on, and turned to Tomo with a murderous glare. "I'm trying to eat my lunch, you moron. I could have spilled my food."

Tomo looked somewhat abashed. "Okay, okay, I thought you could take a joke!"

Yomi's glare intensified, then she turned back to her croquettes. "You're lucky I don't have curry today," she said, "or I'd spill it on you."

Tomo shuddered as she ate more food. "Don't mention that. Yukari-sensei's yelling still gives me nightmares."

I smiled as I ate some of my own curry; Yukari-sensei telling off Tomo for whacking her with lunch trays had been a sight to behold.

"Sakaki-san," Chiyo-chan said, and I glanced in her direction; she looked concerned. I wondered if she thought that Tomo was truly going to live with her.

"Yes, Chiyo-chan?"

"What do you think of these ribbons?" She blushed in embarrassment. "I know it's quite a silly question to ask."

"It's not." I was taken aback that she wanted my opinion on her ribbons—my opinion, of all people—when she didn't even know that I liked ribbons—but I wanted to give her an honest answer. "They're cute. I like them."

It was as though a winter breeze went through me, as though I could feel, again, those staring eyes gazing at me—a curious object, a trapped cat scrabbling at the walls, wanting to hide but having nowhere to run—

"Hey, Sakaki!"

It was Tomo.

I glanced up to see her staring at me, her chopsticks set on top of her bowl, a thoughtful expression cast over her face for once.

"Yes?" I asked. _Stay calm. Breathe. It's almost summer; no one's staring at you._

"Have you ever vandalized a truck before?"

 _What, when I'm not off terrorizing innocent children and hardened criminals alike?_ Or whatever the rumor had grown into these days.

"No."

"Oh." Tomo's disappointment was almost visible to my eyes. "Well, are you strong enough to break its engine, or something?"

"Stop bothering Sakaki-san, Tomo," Yomi said, holding a piece of croquette up between her two chopsticks. I heard Osaka gasp in horror, but Yomi simply popped the bite of bread and spice into her mouth, and chewed.

"Yomi's right, Tomo," Chiyo-chan said, and I gave her a grateful glance. "Sakaki-san doesn't need to be bothered with questions like that."

 _That's truly considerate of them, to tell her that._

"I wouldn't be able to do much damage to a truck," I said. "I would do much more damage to myself."

"Oh," Tomo said, frowning as she picked up her chopsticks and ate the last bite of her food. "Great. Now there's no way I won't end up in a garbage truck."

Yomi rolled her eyes and said, "For the last time, you're not ending up in a garbage truck. You're ending up with a low score."

And in the end, that was exactly what happened to Tomo's English midterm exam.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: A song by Utada Hikaru, "First Love," and** **_What the Kite Thinks_ , a poem by Makoto Ooka, ****is mentioned below. I do not own the copyrights to either in any way.**

* * *

Chapter Ten

As the first summer break of high school started, I began to take walks around the neighborhood. The warm sidewalks gave off a yeast-like scent, and when that mixed with the increasing amount of pollen from flowers yearning to photosynthesize as much as they could, it was nice to take a stroll around a block or two. I could take a popsicle with me, or my camera.

If my mom asked, I would be taking photographs of the pomegranate blossoms; they were a light red color, like sunset-tinged clouds.

But she didn't ask, and so I was free to dart after cats as they leaped to their paws, free to snap the camera second by second by second as they raced away, free to examine the sad little images of tails and paws that I only just managed to capture.

Whenever the woman at the counter asked if I wanted to keep the developed photos, confusion would regularly wrinkle around her eyes as I nodded yes. I couldn't explain why I kept the blurred snatches of cats running away from me—why I was reminding myself of the exact reason that trying to pet cats made me upset.

I stored them in an empty drawer in the desk by my bed, and as the sunny days filled with the sweet, sticky taste of popsicles went by, the pile of photos grew.

Sometimes I would tuck the strap of the camera over my shoulder instead, and reach out towards the cat with the hand that wasn't holding the popsicle. I would be steady, quiet, calm, even though inside I felt like I was going to burst in a violent, red and violet stream of colors. There was a tightness that came from that sensation, a tightness like the seconds ticking down to a bomb going off. And then, as the cat widened its eyes, opened its mouth to sink its teeth into my hand, and scampered away with a mechanical gleam in its eye, the tightness sanded down into sadness.

I started to carry Band-Aids with me. When I tucked them into my pocket, it was an admission that I knew I would not pet a cat that day, because otherwise, I would need no bandages. It held a gloomy feeling, an awareness that I was giving up on a task before I had even inched my foot forward, and I disliked that. There was already that feeling at school, that I gave up at convincing others that they believed falsehoods, every time I stayed silent or turned my eyes towards the floor.

I didn't want to have to give up on petting cats too.

Yet, when the cats bit my hand, when their previous teethmarks were sliced open again, when I felt dizzy at the sight of blood welling up in the cuts, I wished for a Band-Aid. I wouldn't have to see the blood, the cuts, or the knowledge, etched out in thin red lines, that cats despised me.

If only pretending that the loneliness surrounding me at school could be hidden away with some emotional version of a cotton strip pasted onto a stretchy tan shape.

At least summer break was a reprise; at least I had the opportunity to see none of their faces for days on end. I would have liked to see Chiyo-chan, or Yomi, or Tomo, but I didn't expect to. They had their own lives.

And if I felt lonely before falling asleep, if I sensed that I was missing someone as I curled up among blankets and stuffed animals, then that did not matter. I could handle it. I just tucked it away, and shut my eyes, and tried to fall asleep.

* * *

Five days into summer vacation, and I was wandering around the city, feeling the heat rise up from the sidewalks and taking in the noise and rush of all the people around me. None of them seemed afraid of me; I could walk among them and not be backed away from. I could let the sunshine fall on me, soft and gentle, and I could relax.

I had been to the arcade earlier, doing my best to win a plushie from the crane machine, but to no avail. It was a pity—the new stuffed animals they had were cute calico cats. Still, it had been nice to at least try, I reassured myself. That had been all I could do.

I was window shopping now, looking at various cat toys, and a new manga that would be about cat owners. The bells and catnip toys stacked neatly on their display shelves were oddly comforting, instead of making me feel unhappy, as they tended to do.

As I walked along, I could hear music playing from a window up above, possibly from a radio. The tune was just audible above all the conversations around me—conversations of work and of leisure time, of a party that ended in a kiss and of a trip to an amusement park that ended in a life-long terror of roller coasters.

The music had a smooth, graceful melody, and it blended in so seamlessly with the sunny day and the beauty of the glowing green leaves that I wanted to stay there for a few moments more, and soak it all in so that I wouldn't forget.

I could make out some of the words: how someone was gone, how she wished she could be with them, how they would always have been her love—she could never believe she would ever find someone else like them again.

I closed my eyes, and felt the sun on my face, and listened to Utada Hikaru sing of how how the person she loved would always remain in her heart.

 _I wish someone would think that way about me—how I would always remain in their heart._

I blinked open my eyes; the music was arriving at a pace that signaled the song's end. I needed some lunch, something cheap and quick.

My eyes landed on a Megatron Burger a few stores down, and I thought I might as well get something there. The food was mediocre, but it was food, and I was hungry.

As I pushed open the door to the fast food establishment, the air smelling of grease, I noticed three things: orange pigtails bobbing just above the counter in front of a college-aged student whose body language suggested he wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible, a girl with a dreamy expression on her face as she carried a boxed meal to the counter, and a sign that declared there was a Neko Koneko in a children's meal.

I restrained myself from letting out a sigh. Of course it had to only be given to children. Of course no one would think that a teenager might like Neko Knonekos.

Yet, if I was right, if the orange pigtails belonged to who I thought they did, then—a sense of peace suddenly filled me, a warm sense of relief as comforting as the sunshine from before. Perhaps I wouldn't have to go throughout the entire summer vacation without seeing my friends.

I stepped up to the counter, past the college student who was glancing around as if for hidden cameras, and looked down into Chiyo-chan's beaming face.

I smiled back. I had been right.

"Hello, Sakaki-san!" she said. "I didn't expect to see you here. How are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm good. I have a summer job here, and so does Osaka!" She waved to Osaka, who waved back, almost dropping the boxed meal in the process.

I nodded and smiled. It would be nice to have a job with a friend, if I ever managed to find a job.

"What would you like to order today, Sakaki-san?" Chiyo-chan asked, in a polite voice that indicated she had been saying those same words to every customer. Yet the smile still on her face showed that she was truly happy to see me.

I glanced up at the poster announcing the children's meal once more. _I can do this. I can lie to a little girl, and not let my poker face falter._

"You see," I began, "my cousin is visiting from out of town, and she really likes Neko Knoneko…"

I walked out of the Megatron Burger a few minutes later with a box containing chicken, french fries, and a Neko Konkeko doll, and despite the lie, I couldn't have been happier.

* * *

I was standing in a darkened hallway, a school hallway. I could see moonlight filtering in through a window, shining hazily on the tiled floor, but the florescent lights were off.

The door to Class 1-3 was beside me, the numerals faint in the dim light. I turned towards the door, and slid it open, and found myself inside the room. My footsteps echoed around me as I walked towards the window; I was the only one in the room. Yukari-sensei's desk was cleared of papers; the chalkboard was wiped clean; every single desk stood empty, quiet and gloomy like pavement lashed by rain in the middle of the night.

I stared out at the window, and the moonlight seemed to glow everywhere; it shone on the windowsill, and the glass pane, and the metal catch that opened the window, the metal catch which looked sharp and sturdy in its newfound spotlight.

Or—no, the angle of the catch was different. The window was open. I could feel the breeze against my face, feel my hair fluttering against my back.

Someone called to me, saying my name like it was a threat.

I was facing the door, now, and I could feel the breeze from the window cold against my back, and there was an injured person, blood matted into their hair, a gash down their arm. Their eyes held mine as they stepped forward, clinging to the doorway for a moment.

"You did this," the person said. A girl's voice—it was a girl. Blood ran down her forehead and trickled across her nose. She took a step, and then another, and then her hands flew out to stabilize herself on Yukari's desk.

"I—I did what? What did I do?"

I needed to hide. I had to hide. I had to leave; I couldn't be here, not now. I was supposed to be gone from here.

"You did this," the girl repeated, and she stepped closer, and blood dripped out of the gash in her arm.

"I didn't. I don't hurt anyone. It's all a lie—all of it. I would never hurt anyone."

I could see her face clearly now, see directly into her eyes, and I knew that her face and eyes and voice were Kaorin's.

"But you did," Kaorin said. "You hurt me."

I awoke in my bed, the blankets at my feet, the pillow wet against my face—with sweat, with tears, I couldn't tell.

I checked the clock; the bright-red letters spelled out four in the morning. The small Neko Koneko doll from yesterday's visit to Megatron Burger rested on top of the clock, and the sight of it provided me with a small measure of comfort.

I leaned up, and shifted my feet towards me so that I was sitting in bed. I tucked my left arm around myself, and raised my right hand to my face. It came away damp.

Shuddering, I pulled up the blankets from where I had kicked them into a heap, and, turning the pillow over onto its drier side, lay back down. The sheets seemed to hold me as I turned the nightmare over in my head.

Kaorin had been hurt. I had hurt her. She had been bleeding.

 _It wasn't my fault,_ I thought automatically. _It wasn't my fault. I didn't hurt her._

Yet I was too weary to think about it for long, too worn out with the coils of exhaustion slipping into my head, and so I shut my eyes and promised myself that I would go to the library tomorrow. I was going to research why a cat would bite a human repeatedly; if I could fix nothing about school, about the other students, then I could at least learn why cats hated me.

There might be some understanding in that. And then, perhaps I could manage to pick myself up and continue on at school, continue walking down hallways filled with stares, and act as through none of it bothered me, as I had always done.

* * *

Entering the library the following afternoon, I inhaled the mixed scent of fresh paper and the wood polish that was used to clean the tables; it was sharp, musty, tinged with lemon or maybe citrus.

Even though there had always been flowers to tend to when I was a child, always vibrant green stems to roll between fingertips and crumbly, dark soil to poke smooth seeds into, there was always the library two streets away from my home.

I had spent half of one winter in here during eighth grade, reading up on herpetology, the study of amphibians and reptiles. I could remember the list of bones in a frog, even now—the homers, the radius, the ulna, the fewer, the tibia and fibula, the scapulae and the clavicles. I wasn't exactly fond of salamanders and snakes, but it had been interesting, almost soothing, to discover more about animals that I might one day find under the care of my medical knowledge. A small child might bring in a pet frog with a hurt foot, after all. I had already exhausted all the books on cats, dogs, and ruminants, so why not reptiles?

I needed to find a book about feline psychology, some research done on the inside of animals—what happened during the magical moment before the paws leapt forward—and not the tubular segments of the skeleton.

I was standing between two shelves of books, glancing at the titles, searching for the right words that would lead me to fix what I was doing, when I heard a voice.

 _Chiyo-chan? I suppose she doesn't have work today. I didn't know she lived near here._

When I glanced over, I could see that she was standing in front of the help desk thanking the librarian on the other side, an older woman whose graying hair was swept up into a comfortable-looking bun. The librarian was radiating happiness, and responding with something along the lines of what Chiyo-chan had thought of Emily Dickinson.

Putting my search aside for a moment, I walked towards the two of them, wondering if Chiyo-chan might be able to help me. Perhaps she had read many of the books in here when she was younger.

As I approached, the librarian and Chiyo-chan said goodbye to each other. Chiyo-chan turned towards me, holding a book. As she saw me, she smiled.

"Hello, Sakaki-san! I didn't expect to see you again so soon. What are you doing here?"

"I, um, I'm looking for a book."

"What is it about?" she asked.

"Feline psychology."

"I didn't expect you to be interested in cats. Oh! Did you cousin like the Neko Koneko?"

I felt flustered, and tried to seem unconcerned. _Of course she wouldn't expect me to like cats; no one expects you to like cats._ "She liked it."

"Did she name it anything?"

"Chibi," I said. It had been the best name I could come up with.

"That's cute," Chiyo-chan said. "She choose a good name."

"Thanks—um, I'll let her know you liked it."

"Good." Chiyo-chan's smile was so joyful, I almost wished I had told her that I had named Chibi. It would be nice to talk with her about cats.

The librarian approached us, a concerned expression on her face. "Who is your friend, Chiyo-chan?"

"This is Sakaki-san, Itsumi-sensei. She's a friend from high school."

"Hello," I said, bowing as I did, slightly nervous. I didn't recognize Itsumi-sensei from my visits to the library, and I was worried she might think I was a troublemaker. I didn't want to believe that my neighborhood librarian would think of me as a delinquent, when I had never seen her before.

"Hello, Sakaki-san," Itsumi-sensei said, now seeming polite. "I think I've heard Mimori-san, my coworker mention you. She said you liked to read books on biology."

"Yes." I remembered Mimori-sensei, a cheerful woman with chestnut-colored hair and a fondness for chocolates. "She would always have a book on genetics or cellular structures to give me whenever I came by the library."

"Well, I'll tell her that you stopped by," Itsumi-sensei said. "She speaks highly of you."

I could feel myself blushing, and I wondered how Mimori-sensei would feel about my supposed escapades at school. Rumors couldn't possibly travel this far, could they?

"Thank you," I said. "And could you tell her that I said hello, as well?"

"I will," Itsumi-sensei said, with a smile.

"Thank you," I repeated.

"You're welcome," Itsumi-sensei said. "I must get back to work now, but it was a pleasure to meet you, Sakaki-san. And Chiyo-chan, I hope you enjoy reading the book of poetry."

"I'm sure I will," Chiyo-chan said, smiling up at the librarian. "I've never thought about what a kite might think of, but it seems like it will be a great poem."

"It is," Itsumi-sensei promised, smiling, and went back to the help desk.

"Do you like biology, Sakai-san?" Chiyo-chan asked me.

"Yes," I said. "I hope to become a veterinarian."

"That's amazing! You must really like animals, then."

I blushed for the second time in the span of a minute. "Um, yes."

I hoped that Chiyo-chan didn't ask what animals I liked, or if I had pets, or if I thought that Neko Konekos were cute. If she did—even if she asked me another question about liking animals—I was going to panic. I was going to faint or see red or curl up in a ball, because I couldn't take this, not now. It was bad enough to feel like I was being stared at during school; if word got out that I liked animals, the staring would become worse. They wouldn't know what to make of me.

"Sakaki-san? Is everything all right?"

Chiyo-chan's voice startled me out of my spiral of terror. As she looked up at me in concern, I tried to shape my face into an expression that would signal that I was okay, that I had not been panicking a moment before.

"Yes," I said. "I'm fine."

I didn't know why I was so scared about the other students finding out that I liked cats. I didn't want to act out their lies of having a tough persona. And yet I found myself scared that they would think less of me if they knew.

"Sakaki-san, I was wondering if you would like to go with Yomi, Tomo, Osaka and me on a vacation trip to my beach house?"

"E—excuse me?"

 _She has a beach house. She's asking me if I would like to go on a trip. With friends. She's asking me._

The thoughts filed through my head mechanically, like items being built on a conveyer belt in a factory.

 _She's asking me._

"I—" I swallowed. I thought I might cry, in front of Chiyo-chan, and surrounded by bookshelves all filled with volumes that I had examined in years before. My throat felt like there was a rock lodged in it.

"Yes, Chiyo-chan," I said finally, clearing my throat. "I would very much like to go. Thank you."

"You're welcome!" Chiyo-chan's eyes shone. "I'm so happy that you agreed! Now we can all go." She began to fill me in on how long the trip would be, and what I would need to pack, and even though I was listening, all I could think of at that moment was the quiet joy that was flowing through me at the thought of going on a trip with friends.

"Thank you," I said again as Chiyo-chan finished her list. "And we leave three days from now?"

"Yes," Chiyo-chan said, looking somewhat abashed. "I know it's unexpected."

"No. I would like to go," I repeated, and smiled down at Chiyo-chan. My plans of petting cats could wait, for once. The trip wouldn't be for long. I didn't want to give up the chance of going on my first trip with friends, in return for days spent trying to nurse a bitten hand back to health.

"Good," Chiyo-chan said, smiling once more. We began to make our way out of the library together, as Chiyo-chan discussed how her summer job with Osaka was only two days more, so she wouldn't have to miss any work.

As we reached the doors, Chiyo-chan bit her lip and glanced up at me. "Sakaki-san," she said, sounding as if I had forgotten one of the most important duties of my life. "You don't have your book with you."

"It's all right," I said, as I opened the door for the two of us. I thought of how the library would be closed on the day before school started, and tried to fold my regret into a neat bundle that I could tuck away. I could handle lonely hallways for a while longer, even if I still could not pet cats.

"Are you sure?" Chiyo-chan asked, looking concerned.

I nodded. "I can always read it another time."

After all, I had a friend to talk to as we walked home, and a trip to pack for.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Here's Chapter 11! My apologies for the long wait; life became hectic, and I didn't have much time to write. I hope you all enjoy. Feel free to let me know how you think I did with this one.**

 **I should mention that there's a reference below to the fanfic _Rain of Terra_ , in which Tomo is a police officer. It was written by Ratatosk. **

* * *

Chapter 11

It was an amber-tinted evening, with the sun casting a golden light across the butter colored clouds that hung in the sky. I had the lamp on at my desk and an opened suitcase on my bed; I was almost finished with fitting clothes and toiletries into the weather-beaten brown case.

As I folded a yellow swimsuit on top of towels, and checked to make sure I had a tank top and sweatpants as sleepware instead of pajamas dotted with cats, I started to dream of the trip again. The daydreaming had been happening on and off for three days, ever since I had arrived at home, told my parents of Chiyo-chan's invitation, and been given permission to go. I kept picturing sand under the light of the sun, and the sky reflecting light off the waves, and the feeling of the ocean as I waded into the deep green, brine-scented water, my friends beside me.

I hadn't allowed myself to think that I would ever get to go on a vacation with friends. Overhearing discussions of trips to the beach and amusement parks had given me the idea that it was almost sacred, this gathering of people one was close to, and spending time with them.

What would happen, I wondered, after I went back to school? Would news of the vacation be a signal to other people that I was approachable, that I was a person they could talk to and get to know? Would it help dispel the rumors?

I wasn't sure if I wanted more friends. Certainly it would be nice to spend more time with Kaorin, but for the most part, Yomi, Tomo, Chiyo-chan, and Osaka were enough. It was odd; I had spent so much time longing for a friend that I had never taken the time to think what might happen when I did find some. Now I knew: feeling content was what happened. Feeling whole.

A soft knock at my door awoke me from my thoughts, and I turned my head to see Mom standing at the doorway.

"Hi, mom," I said, smoothing out the swimsuit across the towels as I did so.

"Hello," Mom said. "Could I come in for a moment?"

"Yes."

My mom walked through the doorway, her waist length hair swinging with every step, and a face that always seemed to say that anyone she met was welcome to speak with her. Yet I had never fully explained my school life to her. I had alluded to the fact that I wasn't the person with the most friends, but had never breathed a syllable of the rumors.

What would she say if she knew, this middle aged woman with her clear, understanding, brown eyes, and her habit of making sure that I was as happy as I possibly could be?

Mom sat down on my bed beside my suitcase. She smiled down at the bag for a moment—I recalled a photograph of her holding the same bag as she stood on a train platform—then she focused her attention towards me.

"Do you need any help with finishing up packing for your trip?" she asked.

"No, no thank you," I said. "I have everything I need, I think."

"Did you remember extra toothpaste?"

"Yes." I showed her a pocket in the interior of the suitcase, where I had tucked face cream and two tubes of toothpaste. Light danced off of the plastic like uncertainty flickering on a face, and I swallowed the second-guessing down. I had packed enough. "I remembered."

I felt guilty. Here my mom was, allowing me to go on a trip with my friends, when I hadn't told her how everyone else at my school was terrified of me. I was repaying her with less than half of the truth, while she willingly gave me her trust. She had cheered me on at sports events for years; she bought me nice clothes; she gave me gifts of plush cats or CDs on my birthday.

"Good. Are you excited for the trip?" Faint creases appeared in her forehead, as if she was worried that I might say that I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

"Yes." That was true, of course it was true. Yet there was also a part of me that was dreading the drive to the beach, dreading the sound of the waves crashing endlessly, dreading the moment when everyone fell asleep, and I was left alone, to ponder over any possible moment that signified that they didn't want to be friends with me.

The four of them had chosen me, I reminded myself. They had picked me; they had done what no one else dared to do, save Kaorin—approached me, spoke to me, smiled at me.

I hadn't realized how good it would feel, to be smiled at by a friend.

If I told my mom of how long I had wanted that to happen, then it would seem like I was complaining about what fate had decided to give to me, and there was no way that I could do that. I would have to keep pretending that I was all right, as I always did.

"Sweetheart?" Mom patted my knee with a hand, and I blinked at her. The lines on her forehead deepened, but her frown spoke of concern, not anger.

"I'm fine. Just thinking." I placed my hand on top of hers and curled my fingers around it, trying to reassure her.

 _I'm fine, I'm fine._ A mantra that I would repeat until I believed it.

"These are nice girls, right?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "They are. Chiyo-chan is mature for her age, and she doesn't hold her intelligence over anyone. She's kind, and polite. Yomi-san is always friendly towards me. Tomo-san is somewhat hyper, but I do think she's good at heart—" remembering the look in Tomo's eyes when she realized she had gone too far, her saying that she was treating me as she did Yomi, "—and I like Osaka. She always has something interesting to say."

"Osaka?" she checked, sounding confused.

"Yes. Her name is Ayumu, but Tomo gave her the nickname of Osaka, because that's where she lived before moving here."

Mom laughed. "I don't know what to make of that, but as long as this Tomo-san is being nice to you—"

"Yes," I said again. "She is."

"Good." Mom squeezed my hand in hers, then stood up, smiling down at me. "I better get to bed, I just wanted to check and make sure everything was okay. I remember that I was nervous about going on my first vacation trip with friends."

"I do feel a little nervous," I said, embarrassed at admitting it, but glad all the same that she had felt the same way.

"I'm sure you'll have fun. And if it doesn't turn out to be, which I doubt, call me and let me know."

"I will. Chiyo-chan called me earlier to tell me that Yukari-sensei and Kurosawa-sensei offered to drive us, so they should be able to keep things under control." Truthfully, I was doubtful of Yukari-sensei's abilities to not add to a lack of control, but perhaps the more polite and sensible part of her would emerge.

"Oh, Kurosawa-sensei is your PE teacher, right? Has she talked to you about any sports competitions?"

"No." My stomach clenched as I thought of running down a track in front of a pack of faceless, emotionless students, all determined to win, focusing every atom of their being on crossing over the finish line first. "She…she hasn't. But the athletic festival happens after we come back from vacation. There should be plenty of races."

"Well, I'm sure you'll do well in those." Mom smiled at me again, her face full of a quiet joy that I knew I could never bring myself to crush. "You always do."

I made myself smile back at her. I could feel my heartbeat quickening, feel it beating inside my chest.

"Yes," I said, hoping that she couldn't hear my heartbeat. "I do."

* * *

Kurosawa-sensei, seated in the front seat of her car, was blankly staring at the steering wheel. I was sitting behind her, in the back seat, and I thought I saw her shoulders shaking. It was the next day, and we had met at Chiyo-chan's house before starting our trip to her beach house. While Yukari-sensei had seemed enthusiastic about driving Osaka and Chiyo-chan, Kurosawa-sensei didn't seem to be quite as excited.

Yomi sat beside me, and was busy calling out her open window to Tomo. "Hurry up!"

"I am!" Tomo shouted back, and I heard the trunk of the car slam. "You rub the fact that you have a great body in my face during the summer, don't make me rush to put my bags away!"

"That again," Yomi muttered, casting an eye roll in my direction, as if to say, _Can you believe her?_ I offered a sympathetic smile in return.

Tomo walked past Yomi's side of the car and threw open the door to the passenger side. "Ease up, Nyamo-sensei!" she said, and Kurosawa-sensei jumped as if stung. "With me in shotgun, this ride'll be a blast."

"I didn't rub it in," Yomi said, closing her window with the flick of the button, before she leaned over the top of the passenger seat to talk to Tomo.

"What?" Tomo asked, glancing behind her in surprise, a look of mechanical glee on her face.

"My supposedly great body," Yomi said, in a flat tone. "Now put your seat belt on before you do something crazy, like honk the horn too many times."

Without turning her head, Tomo put out her hand in the direction of the steering wheel, but Kurosawa-sensei grabbed her wrist.

"Listen, Tomo-chan," Kurosawa-sensei said sternly. "I deal with a half-comatose Yukari on the way to school every day. Don't think I don't know what I'm getting into when I allowed you to take shotgun."

"I could have taken shotgun," Yomi said, as Tomo bucked her seatbelt with a huff.

"You could have," Kurosawa-sensei agreed as she started up the car. "But I didn't want to put Sakaki-san though an hour's long drive sitting next to Tomo."

"Hey, I'm not that bad!" Tomo said, an indignant tone coating her words.

"That's true," I said in the silence that had filled the car. "You brought a camera, after all."

 _And,_ I thought, _you had said to Chiyo-chan that inviting me was a good idea._ Warmth sprung up in me at the thought, the type of happy feeling I always associated with a kind gesture from a friend.

"Thank you!" Tomo said to me, then turned her head to glance back at Yomi, who merely adjusted her glasses in return. "See, Sakaki-san cares about me!"

Yomi sighed, then said, "She's not the only one, you idiot. Just don't make Kurosawa-sensei crash the car. I really don't feel like dying in a car accident because you thought turning on the windshield wipers was a good idea."

"But it might rain." Tomo indicated the sunshine outside, then glanced out of the window herself. "Clouds could show up."

I looked out of Yomi's window. The sky was a clear light blue that signaled nothing except heat.

Lowering my gaze from the sky, I saw Yukari-sensei in her own car a few feet away, further up Chiyo-chan's driveway. She seemed to be talking to Osaka and Chiyo-chan, judging by how she was looking towards the back seat.

"Are any of you very religious?" Kurosawa-sensei asked as Yukari-sensei started up her own car, which looked, frankly, like someone had taken a hammer to a car that had fallen off a cliff for the tenth time.

"Isn't that somewhat personal?" Yomi said, confused.

I glanced back over at Kurosawa-sensei, and saw her head jerk up once, in a rough semblance of a nod. "My apologies. But Yukari's going to need all the prayers she can get if she's going to drive safely."

As Yukari-sensei's car began to leave the driveway, it zipped by us at a speed I was sure was less than legal. Tomo made a sound that was half-astonishment, half-awe.

"I see," Yomi said as, ahead of us, Yukari-sensei accidentally went into reverse, made her car drive backwards in a circle, then readjusted the gears and managed to leave the driveway.

Kurosawa-sensei let out a long-suffering sigh, and I saw that she had raised a hand to rub her forehead. "I wish I could have fit all of you in my car."

"Wow," Tomo said, awestruck. "I want to learn to drive like that someday."

"Don't you dare think about that," Yomi grumbled. "You'll get so many speeding tickets, they'll have to make a new position just to give you them all."

"I won't be able to get a ticket when I'm part of the police force, Yomi," Tomo said matter-of-factly. "Don't be stupid."

"They can give officers tickets," Yomi shot back as Kurosawa-sensei also began to leave Chiyo-chan's driveway, albeit at a slower speed than Yukari-sensei and without driving backwards.

"Not if those officers do a badass job of taking down criminals," Tomo said.

"And how would you do a badass job of taking down criminals, exactly?" Yomi sounded as if she regretted speaking of speeding tickets in the first place, but I hadn't heard much of Tomo's aspirations for a career, so I was interested as she spoke of breaking up kidnappers, gambling dens, and cults.

"And I'll do it all with a gun and a katana," Tomo finished with a pretend swipe of a sword.

"A katana," Yomi repeated, her voice filled to the brim with sarcasm. "You're going to defeat _bad guys_ with a _katana._ "

"Don't talk crap about katanas, Yomi," Tomo said, as we turned onto a main road; ahead of us, Yukari-sensei's car served from side to side, with occasional side trips to the other lane.

Tomo sounded somewhat serious for a moment, just as she had when she had thanked Yukari-sensei for driving us earlier. I wondered if the summer heat was making her feel lethargic.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop talking about how katanas aren't useless," Yomi said. "But you'd need a partner, right? Someone to make sure you wouldn't cause complete destruction to the police force?"

"That would be you, Yomi," Tomo said, and then abruptly straightened up to look at the windshield better. "Nyamo-sensei, hurry up! Yukari-sensei's getting ahead!"

"It's not a race," Kurosawa-sensei said, although I swore that the car increased its speed, if only slightly.

I heard something that sounded like a sniff, and glanced over at Yomi, who looked pensive.

"You could drive," I said to her, wondering if she wanted to be left alone for a moment, but thinking I should say something anyway. "That way, there'd be no speeding tickets."

"What—oh—" Yomi adjusted her glasses, swallowed, fiddled with her hair, then glanced over at me with something that looked like an approximation of a smile. "You're right. I guess I could drive."

Tomo, who had been cheering on Kurosawa-sensei, despite the latter's protests that she couldn't drive above the speed limit, glanced back at us. "Did you say you could drive, Yomi?"

"No, but in your fantasy of becoming a police officer, and me being your partner, I'd drive so you wouldn't crash the car."

"I wouldn't crash the car," Tomo said, offended.

"You would," Yomi said, as though she knew exactly what would happen. "And then I would have to drive it."

"Is it possible," Kurosawa-sensei asked with an emotion close to annoyance, "to not talk about crashing a car?"

We all took a moment to watch the out-of-control whirlwind of energy that was Yukari-sensei's car. Staring at the gray blur, which was moving faster than I thought cars could ever move, I hoped that Chiyo-chan and Osaka might just be able to make it out okay.

"I still want to learn how to drive like that," Tomo said, after a moment of silence.

"That's exactly why you'd crash the car," Yomi said.

We reached the beach house, and Chiyo-chan managed to unlock the door after she finished trembling. Osaka wasn't much better off—her usual dreamy expression was tinged with panic.

"I'm never gonna be afraid of those roller coasters again," she kept saying.

Tomo, meanwhile, had forgotten to take her suitcase from Kurosawa-sensei's car; she was too busy shooting question after question at Yukari-sensei about where our teacher had learned to drive.

"Practice," I overheard Yukari-sensei say as I walked up the beach house's wooden steps, carrying my suitcase in one hand and Tomo's in another. I wondered if Tomo had packed rocks instead of clothes as I struggled to move her suitcase.

At least we were here—at least I could smell the salt and seaweed—and the sight of the beach house's interior of driftwood planks was a pleasant sight for my eyes when I finally reached the door.

Chiyo-chan was seated on the floor a few steps away from the doorway. I slid off my shoes, put the suitcases against the wall, and went to join her.

"H—hi, Sakaki-san," she said when she noticed me. A blush doused her face in light red. "Do you—do you like it?"

Assuming she meant the house, I nodded. I sat down beside her, waiting for her to speak, and catching the scent of warm sand from somewhere, like long ago memories of baking bread.

"You wouldn't have been afraid of—of—the—Yukari-sensei's—" Her eyes glazed over, and she brought her knees up to her chest, as if to make a wall between her and the air, the house, the dented gray car outside.

A question or a statement or a belief—I couldn't tell which Chiyo-chan had spoken, but she needed an answer.

"No." I said the word gently, trying to sooth her fears and keep my own fears inside, where they belonged. "I would have been. Anyone would have. But you're safe now."

It could have been the sunlight streaking in warmly through the windows, or the distance I had put between myself and the school, or the knowledge that Yukari-sensei's driving would terrify anyone.

I was never sure of why, but no eyes were there to stare at me in that moment. There was no fear awoken inside me, no pounding heartbeat, no paralysis that kept me rooted to the ground. I had tensed, waiting for all of it to swoop over me, but the only emotion that I felt was relief.

Chiyo-chan blinked up at me, for even when we were both sitting on the floor, I was still taller than her. "Really?"

"Yes."

A thought of a contented expression stole across her face, but then it slipped away. "Did everyone get their bags in okay?"

"I think so." I glanced over towards where I had left the door open, and I could see the five of them still out there, silhouetted against the pale brown sand, framed in the wooden doorway. They were like a photograph, like a treasure, and I wanted to never look away.

And then Tomo tore up the steps, Yomi just behind her.

"We need to smash a watermelon!" Tomo announced, taking a few steps into the room, throwing her arms up in the air as if having just won an award.

"Take your shoes off," Yomi said, as she did so herself. "And we do not need to smash a watermelon."

"But it's fun!" Tomo whined, turning around to stare at Yomi, who let out a sigh.

"First of all," she said, setting her suitcase down by the door, "we would need a watermelon—"

"Which I brought with me," Tomo said, and my aching shoulder blades seemed to light up in pain as I realized that must have been what had in Tomo's suitcase.

"Why would you do _that_ —?" Yomi asked as she stood up, her long auburn hair swaying as she did so.

"I knew that you would forget it," Tomo said. "And geez—" I saw her shoulders slump, like she had enough of making herself watch a particularly annoying perfume commercial, "—will you stop showing off?"

"I'm not showing off," Yomi said, as she pushed past Tomo towards Chiyo-chan and me; her feet tapped in a steady rhythm on the smooth wooden floor as she walked over. "That's all in your head. And this is Chiyo-chan's beach house. Not yours."

Yomi sat down beside me, her left leg tucked partly underneath her; the other leg she positioned so that her knee faced the celling, and her right arm wrapped around it, as if she was holding together something fragile.

"But it's a great beach house," Tomo said as she turned to stare at Yomi, crossing her arms while she did so.

"That doesn't belong to you," Yomi said, glancing back up at her.

"I—I really don't mind if you want to smash a watermelon, Tomo," Chiyo-chan said, still sounding a little shaken. "I, um, I don't think we have a bat, though."

"See!" Tomo beamed a triumphant grin at Yomi, who looked as though she wished there was a bat lying around so she could use it on Tomo's head.

"You can't smash a watermelon by hoping the protons and neutrons fly apart," Yomi said. "Physics doesn't work like that."

"I know that," Tomo said, as she sat down with a thump beside Yomi. "I can use my famous karate chop on it instead. Don't be stupid, Yomi."

"You've never even done karate," Yomi said.

Tomo grinned. "Ha! You're stupid!"

"Who's stupid?" Yukari-sensei asked, and I glanced over to see her panting in the doorway. She managed to catch her breath enough to ask, "Is it Nyamo?"

"I'm not the one who drives like a maniac," Kurosuwa-sensei said as she came to stand beside Yukari-sensei, Osaka right behind her. I noticed that Kurosuwa-sensei was not out of breath in the slightest, and that Osaka looked pale at the mention of Yukari-sensei's driving.

"I'm not the one who teaches sports for a living," Yukari-sensei said.

"Remember that time you were trying to show your homeroom class how to play soccer?" Kurosuwa-sensei asked.

Yukari-sensei sighed. "They all looked like they were dying of boredom. I thought I could try to wake them up a bit."

"By hitting us in the head with a soccer ball you threw at us," Tomo put in. "That's not waking us up, that's giving us a concussion."

"Don't lie like that," Yukari-sensei said. "Or I won't teach you how to drive." She folded her arms. "Anyway, I never intended to hit you in the head."

I heard Chiyo-chan whimper, and I glanced over at her to see that she looked like she could very well throw up. "Yukari-sensei's…going to teach Tomo…?" She couldn't finish her sentence; the idea of it must have been terrifying.

"No," I said. "They wouldn't get out of the driveway."

Chiyo-chan sighed, relieved, but whatever she was going to say next was halted by Tomo saying,"What do you mean, we wouldn't get out of the driveway?"

I glanced over at Tomo; she looked livid, but behind the anger I thought I saw some sense of humor dancing in her eyes.

"Physics," I said, and left it at that.

* * *

I had forgotten what it was like to feel the grainy, pale sand baking under my feet, and hear the waves crashing in their soothing rhythm from only a few feet away. I had forgotten, too, that the yellow bikini I had brought with me was more revealing than I would like, but as long as Tomo or Osaka didn't make any more quips about me being an "American," I supposed that I would be fine.

I sat down on the sand, wanting to take the sight of the beach in for a while before rushing into the sea. It was smooth, but as I was sitting in front of the line of seashells that marked the place where the waves wandered up to, it wasn't damp.

I could never get over the fact that sand felt so different that dirt. Gardening with my mom, the dirt always seemed so crumbly, so much like it could break up into millions of pieces of dark brown earth. But here, the sand was already in pieces, and I wondered if that was why it felt so silky to the touch.

"You know them hemorrhoids…?"

I darted a glance to the left, and saw that Osaka was sitting next to me. Not that I was bothered that she had wanted to sit next to me—but then—why hemorrhoids, out of nowhere, just dropping out of her brain and out of her mouth?

"…Ehh?.." was all I could think of to utter. I liked Osaka well enough, but this was beyond even my scope of daydreaming.

"Some folks call 'em hemorrhoids," Osaka continued, as if we had been naturally discussing them, as if I wasn't sitting there with a flummoxed expression, "but others call 'em 'roids. Why does the one not have an 'h' in it? Which one's right?"

 _It doesn't have an 'h' because referring to them as 'roids was simpler for people who weren't medical professionals. It's slang. They're the same word._

If only I could have had those words seep down into my throat and fall from my tongue—but that would be rude, to launch into an explanation and make Osaka feel stupid.

"Would it be under 'h' or 'r' in the dictionary?" Osaka asked.

"…I don't know," I said, although I suspected that it would be 'h'.

We sat in silence for a few moments, or at least as much silence as could be gathered from the waves sounding in their cacophony of foam and clear water. Sunlight glinted off the mounds of shells lying in piles in front of us. If I squinted, I could see their colors, the pale oranges and deep blues and subtle browns and lazy purples, all arranged against slivers of calcium carbonate.

"I've always wanted to go to the ocean and ride a dolphin," Osaka said.

"…That sounds nice," I said, and it was true. It did sound like a good idea, to swim out into the sea until one's arms and legs ached in a pleasant sort of way, to taste the salt of the waves, to feel the seaweed taunting one's toes. And then a dolphin would appear, gray skin glinting wetly in the light of the moon, almost soft in its movements despite its large size.

I would swing myself up onto its back, as gently as I possibly could, and then wrap my hands around its fin. We would go swimming off into the night, the dolphin and I, feeling the cool air around us as we went faster and faster still—

"Look at you two space cadets," Yomi's voice, teasing yet confused, entered my ears with a jolt. "What are you two thinking about?"

"We were thinking about 'rhoids," Osaka said, sounding as if she had just woken up from a particularly pleasant dream.

The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming.

I didn't mind swimming as much as I disliked other sports, I thought as I floated on my back, feeling the waves roll underneath me. It was only bad when I was made to enter a relay race or a competition because the coach thought I would win. And I usually did win.

But swimming like this, free of cholrine-flavored water and those plastic knob-ropes that separated lanes, was much more peaceful. The ocean had always seemed pleasant to me on family vacations, and I was glad to know that fact hadn't changed.

I turned over with a splash, and then started to comb through the water with my arms, and kick with my feet. The sun warmed my back, and I could taste salt on my tongue. Water lapped around me like it was saying hello.

And then a hand wrapped around my ankle, slimy and cold, and yanked downward.

I let myself leave the water and be pulled backwards into the chilly air. Whoever had gotten hold of me wasn't very strong, since I hadn't gone underwater.

I felt sand brush against my toes. The hand vanished from my ankle.

I turned around to see Tomo pop her head out from underwater, looking abashed.

"Did you see that crab?" she asked me. "It was gigantic! I seriously thought it was going to eat me. Did it grab you too?"

"Crabs don't have hands," I said evenly, and splashed her in the face.

Tomo gaped at me in astonishment—I wondered with a pang of unease if she had expected me to hit her as revenge—but then a smirk burst open on her face, and she splashed me back.

A stray bead of water must have struck Yomi, who was swimming nearby, for a wall of water came from her direction and made Tomo sputter.

This dissolved into an all-out fight; eventually, Osaka and Chiyo-chan teamed up against the three of us. They were declared the winners, and I was never sure of how they did this, exactly.

Still, the water fight made me realize how much fun I could have with the four of them, and it made me realize, too, that I had forgotten the scent and the sight of the underside of the ocean.

At one point, I had swum up behind Yomi in an attempt to splash her. Upon ducking underwater, so that she wouldn't see me, I had seen an expanse of thin gray sand spread out below me in an everlasting landscape. Particles of glittering sand swirled around like clouds, and a velvety green haze overshadowed it all. It was calm, and filled me with a sensation of peace that I had not felt in a very long time.

It was not that being underwater simply felt wet. No, it was like I was cocooned in smooth, sun-shot layers of heavy cloth, except I could always move forward, always continue on my way into deeper and still deeper calm.

I still remembered that moment later, even after we had all scrambled out of the sea and wrapped ourselves in our towels, after we had showered and gotten dressed in clean clothes, after Nyamo-sensei had taken over making dinner from Yukari-sensei, who had burned herself in an attempt to cook some stir-fry.

"Thank you—I still don't see why I couldn't have helped," Yukari-sensei grumbled as Nyamo-sensei set a bowl of steaming ramen noodles, chicken, and vegetables in front of her.

"Because then you would have ended up trying to flip the noodles in the air, and they would have landed on your head," Nyamo-sensei said with such conviction that I wondered if that had, indeed, happened.

"A noodle hat," Osaka said, beaming as she neatly snapped her chopsticks apart. "Thank you, Nyamo-sensei."

I murmured my own thanks, and began to eat my own ramen, hoping to hear what a noodle hat would look like.

"I wonder what how a noodle hat would taste," Tomo mused as she slurped down her bowlful of ramen.

"Crunchy," Osaka said, starting in on her noodles in small bites. "The noodles would dry up, right? Because all of 'em would stick to the person's head."

"They wouldn't brush the noodles off?" Tomo almost choked as she swallowed the last few bites of her meal.

"Naw," Osaka said. "They'd stick right on, and the person wouldn't be able to get 'em off."

Chiyo-chan swallowed a bite of her own meal, then said, "Noodles can clump together a lot. Whenever I make udon for some breakfast, they stick together when I first start to cook them. It's because of the starch."

"Say that again," Tomo said, leaning forward in surprise.

Chiyo-chan blinked, then said, "Noodles can—"

"No," Tomo said, waving her hands in impatience. "I mean, you make breakfast?"

"Yes," Chiyo-chan said, sounding slightly confused. "I do. For myself, and my parents."

"Wow," Tomo said, impressed. "And all I can do is burn toast. You're like a tiny perfect human being."

Chiyo-chan frowned, annoyed. "I'm not _tiny_. I'm just younger than you."

"Tomo," Yomi interjected, as she finished chewing a bite of food, "can you not call the friend who invited you to her beach house _tiny_?"

"Okay, okay, stop pestering me," Tomo said, folding her arms. She glanced over at Yukari-sensei and Nyamo-sensei, both of whom were finishing their dinners. "Has Yukari-senei ever had noodles fall on her head?"

"No," Yukari-sensei said, then immediately picked up her bowl, tipped it towards her mouth, and slurped down chicken and noodles.

"Yes," Nyamo-sensei interjected. "There was that one time were you tried to hit me with the pan and forgot you were cooking."

Yukari-sensei coughed, having eaten too many noodles, and then managed to say, "I didn't forget."

"The noodles flew out of the pan and landed on Yukari's face and hair," Nyamo-sensei continued, amused. "And she had been cooking for a while, so the noodles were still hot."

"Were you burned by the noodles, Yukari-sensei?" Chiyo-chan asked, her forehead scrunched in worry.

Yukari-sensei crossed her arms, a replica of Tomo for a moment, then muttered, "I tossed them at Nyamo before they could burn me."

Tomo laughed hysterically, as if the best comedian in the world had spoken.

"I wonder if we should have a food fight after dinner," Osaka said, but the only answer she received was Tomo laughing.

Yomi sighed. "We get that you think that what Yukari-sensei said was funny, Tomo."

Tomo grinned. "Good, I wasn't sure. Now, seeing as it's nighttime—you all know what that means, right?"

"Ghost stories?" Osaka asked hopefully.

"No," Tomo said, then reconsidered. "Well, yeah, those too, but I was actually thinking of fireworks!"

"Oh," Osaka said. "They're not too bad either. Loud, though."

"I'm way ahead of you, Tomo," Yukari-sensei said. "I brought them with me."

"I knew there was a reason why you're my favorite teacher," Tomo said, jumping to her feet.

Yukari-sensei smiled, joy smoothing her previous annoyance. She glanced towards Nyamo-sensei, a triumphant expression crossing her face. "Why didn't we bring out the fireworks earlier?"

"I hadn't finished telling them about your little cooking fiasco," Nyamo-sensei said, picking up her bowl and chopsticks, and standing up from her seat.

"It wasn't a fiasco," Yukari-sensei said, frowning.

Nymao-sensei began to walk over towards the sink and didn't answer, although I thought I saw the shadow of a smile perch on her lips.

"I can go get the matches!" Tomo said, bouncing up out of her chair. She turned to Chiyo-chan. "Where are the matches?"

"I have them," Yukari-sensei said.

"Then let's light up some rockets!" Tomo cheered, and promptly ran out the door.

"Do you need help cleaning up, Nyamo-sensei?" Chiyo-chan asked as the sound of rapid footsteps on sand trailed away into silence.

"I can help clean," Osaka offered.

"Me too," Yomi said, picking up some empty bowls.

"And me," I said, making my way over to the sink, Chiyo-chan following me

"Thank you," Nyamo-sensei said; she glanced over and smiled at me as I drew closer. I smiled back.

Yomi brought the bowls over to us, and proceeded to wash them; Chiyo-chan helped her. I rinsed the bowls off, and Nyamo-sensei dried them with an extra towel.

"Wow, look at them all flock to you," I heard Yukari-sensei say to Nyamo-sensei. "Like baby birds."

Osaka, who was gathering cups, glanced at Yukari-sensei. "We could wear bowls for hats after we dry them," she suggested. "They won't be noodles, but it could still be fun."

"I guess it could be," Yukari-sensei agreed. "But you know what's better?"

"What?" Osaka said, her eyes widening in expectation.

"Wearing a book that you need to bring to class as a hat, so you won't forget it," Yukari-sensei said, her words slathered with sarcasm.

"I get it," Osaka said. "Like a sailboat hat made of paper."

"Somewhat," Yukari-sensei said. "Hey, Nyamo, can you hurry up with those dishes? How long does it take to wash bowls anyway?"

"Longer if you talk," Nyamo-sensei said as Chiyo-chan passed me a sudsy bowl to rise. "Maybe you should go look for Tomo and make sure she doesn't set anything on fire."

"Don't worry, I left the matches in my car," Yukari-sensei said, and I felt Chiyo-chan stiffen beside me. I gave her a sympathetic look, and saw that her fingers had tightened around the rim of a bowl she was scrubbing.

"Did you leave the matches beside the fireworks?" Nyamo-sensei asked, dread filling her voice at the same temperature and speed that snow would fill an empty bucket during a blizzard.

"Yes," Yukari-sensei said. "Is that a problem—? Oh."

"Really, Yukari," Nyamo-sensei said, half-tossing the towel she was using against the countertop in frustration. "I mean, use your brain. It's filled with English, so why don't you—"

"Okay, okay," Yukari-sensei snapped, heading over to the door and slipping on her shoes. "I'll go out and make sure Tomo hasn't caused any explosions while you continue your little cozy cleaning-up thing." She shut the door behind her with an annoyed _thwap._

"I think I might head outside too," Yomi said, popping the small bubble of silence the room had been enfolded in for a moment. "Just…just to…"

"We'll be out in five minutes or so," Nyamo-sensei said.

"Okay," Yomi said, sounding relieved. I heard the sounds of her putting her shoes on behind us, and then the sound of the door swinging open and closed.

"Sometimes Yukari just…" Nyamo-sensei muttered beside me, and then she caught herself, aware that Chiyo-chan seemed worried. "It's okay, Chiyo-chan, she's just in a bit of a mood. It'll blow over once she gets started on the fireworks."

"I hope her mood doesn't decide to rise into the sky and explode," Osaka said, placing her stack of cups down by Chiyo-chan, who startled at the clatter. "That won't look good at all."

"No, it won't," Nyamo-sensei agreed, and then glanced over at me, looking as if she wanted to change the subject away from Yukari-sensei and her mood. "Sakaki-san, you swam well out there today. Have you ever been in any competitions?"

I almost dropped the bowl I was rising; for a second, all I could do was watch the water from the faucet curve around the lip of the bowl in a clear, effortless dance. It was so simple, I thought, to keep moving forward. And yet at the same time, if gravity was reversed, it would be impossible; the only action I would be able to do then was move backward.

"Um," I said, shaking myself out of that train of thought, and readjusting my grip on the bowl. Water splashed over my fingers. "I, uh, no. I haven't. Been in any. My middle school didn't have much of a team."

"I see," Nyamo-sensei said, giving me an encouraging smile, and I wondered for a heart-stopping second if she knew. She was smart, she had to have picked up on something.

"Well," she continued, as I handed my bowl to her to dry it. "if you ever wanted to join the team at school, I'm the coach, so I could give you some tips about competitions, but I doubt you'd need any advice about swimming."

"Thank you," I said, and then, feeling my stomach curdle in self-hatred as the words dropped out of my mouth, I added, "I'd like to join. It sounds fun. I'll think about it."

"Good," Nyamo-sensei said, smiling once more. "There's another student in your year, Kagura-san, who was planning to join. She's in my homeroom—" a note of pride clearly rang out in her words, "—so you may might not have met her, but she also enjoys athletics."

 _Enjoys athletics._ I hoped that this Kagura-san wasn't one of those girls who dedicated their lives to sports. That hope was soon overtaken by the need to stop vomit from spewing out of my throat and onto the bowl I had just cleaned. Thankfully, I was able to keep everything down.

"Sakaki-san?" Osaka's voice wafted into my ears, and I glanced around to see that she hadn't left our little washing-up group, but instead was standing next to Chiyo-chan.

"Yes?" I made myself ask.

I wanted to wash my mouth, rinse it out with seawater. Maybe the bitter, cold taste of it would get rid of the residue of half-digested food that seemed to have crawled up my throat and laid itself down to rest on my tongue.

"You know how in dreams you can sometimes control what you do?" Osaka asked.

"Yes," I said.

"What do you think would happen if you summoned a hawk and an eggplant before New Year's? Would you still get good luck?" Osaka asked.

"You'd also need Mount Fuji," I said. "Either way, I could see how you might have more good luck then you would generally have."

"Yeah," Osaka said, satisfied. "That sounds right. Maybe tobacco or a fan would help too."

The door creaked open behind the four of us, and I turned around to see Tomo in the doorway, grinning as if she had just won the hardest argument she had ever been in.

"Yukari-sensei says to get out there and help her set up the fireworks, or she'll set all of them off herself," she said. "Yomi was smart for once, and came out first. I expected more from you, Chiyo-chan—aren't you supposed to be some kind of genius?"

"Yukari's serious about those fireworks," Nyamo-sensei said, setting down the final cup she had to dry. "We'd better get out there—I don't want her to have all the fun."

* * *

I crouched beside the water, feeling the chill of the nighttime air rising off the waves; it crawled through my shirt and nestled against my skin. I shivered, tensing at the sound of exploding rockets and Tomo's shouts of joy behind me.

The reflections of the light of the fireworks seemed to pool and seep into one another as the dark waves rocked back and forth. I watched as blue mixed with green, yellow flickered against orange, red overshadowed white and tinted it pink. And above all, the smoke from the lights remained—faint, wraithlike, hinting at their former power; they swirled over the water in a sickening dance of gray against navy blue.

As the fireworks continued to rise with a shriek and explode with a bang, I caught glimpses of my face among all the fragmented particles of light. It was a serious face, a face with pale shadows underneath the eyes, and a set jaw that never trembled in the presence of others. I stared at it and wondered how it could be my own.

Osaka plopped herself down into the sand beside me. "Looking for dolphins?" she asked.

"No," I said, feeling a prick of shame; I had forgotten that dolphins might be out here tonight. "Myself."

"Oh." Osaka pondered this for a moment, then said, "I tried to look for myself when staring into a puddle once. It didn't work. But the thing is, you've gotta look for yourself in places other people aren't around. Other people will think stuff about you that won't be true, but you can't believe them if they say it to you, 'cause then you'll believe in false stuff about yourself, and that won't help you."

I traced patterns in the sand with a fingertip, feeling the rough grains slide away from me, even as they seemed to be solidified in one great mass of ground. "But what if they go on thinking it, and you aren't able to do anything about it?"

I waited for the fear to creep up my spine, for the eyes to turn to me and not let me go, for the paralysis to steal into my heart and make me give up trying to do anything.

And there was a chill that settled in my stomach, or a sensation that someone glanced in my direction for a moment longer than necessary, or a feeling that my heart slowed for a moment, but then it was gone.

It was gone, and I could breathe again. For whatever reason, it had been just a bit worse than when I had spoken with Chiyo-chan earlier, but perhaps because it was so dark out. The sea reflected the stars, to be sure, but that light was so small, it was soon overtaken by the navy-black shade of the sky.

"Then," Osaka said, and I realized with a shudder that she was still there, that she hadn't left, that she was frowning in serious consideration of my question. "Then, you just gotta ignore them. They don't care about you, really. They just think of—of a false you. You need to find the people who care about the actual you, instead."

I stared out at the water for a moment, hearing the soft crash of the waves as they enveloped their siblings, over and over and over. I could smell the fireworks, a sharp, bitter scent, almost a campfire scent, but darker and drier.

I would not cry. I was not going to cry over the possibility that Osaka could have noticed much more than she let on, and had wanted to offer me help. Me, off all people, with a stone face and bruised fists and—and—

In the end, I didn't say anything, just nodded once. The two of us sat there in silence, watching the ocean for the shadows of dolphins, listening to the small explosions behind us, until all the fireworks were used up, and it was time to leave the beach and enter the house for sleep.

* * *

I stared up at the celling, feeling small and far away as I laid on my sleeping mat. Waves spluttered in a far-away mixture of water and air and seam foam. Tomo snored beside me, a repetitive wheeze that effortlessly swept its way into my ear.

I had to fall asleep. My muscles ached, pleasant and draining, and my head felt empty. Or perhaps it was full of the events of a good day instead—perhaps that was why it was like I could feel my neurons slow in their rapid communications, like I could feel the intricate gray cells aching with a need for rest.

The moonlight passed through the windows as if glass was an object that didn't exist. Pale white-gray light spread over the shapes of my sleeping friends, rising with their slow-moving chests, and following the movement of an arm or a leg in the midst of sleep.

This trip had been the right choice. I could feel a strengthen connection with the others sleeping beside me, an invisible grasp expressed in teasing and jokes, smiles and conversations, confessions of weakness and administrations of advice.

I shut my eyes. I inhaled. I exhaled.

I relaxed against the soft fabric of the mat. I thought to myself that it would be okay now, that I would be able to relax not only in a wooden house at night, but also in a cement school in the day.

I had become tied to the six people who were drowning in dreams beside me, and I didn't want to ever have them unravel away from me, becoming statues that I no longer recognized.

I was going to stay with them. I was going to be their friend.

I was going to trust, to try to trust, that they would do the same to me.


End file.
